#DeckTheHarlequin: The Queen's New Year Secret

I read category romance for a variety of reasons, but when it comes to Harlequin Presents, there's really only one reason.  I'm in it for the fairy tale.  Presents work best for me when they're a blatant, hit you upside the head with a sledgehammer, fairy tale.  And really, nobody writes an unapologetic fairy tale quite like Maisey Yates.  She's a master of it.

The Queen's New Year Secret is the second book in a duology featuring princely brothers for a made-up Mediterranean-sounding country.  I read the first book, A Christmas Vow of Seduction, last year during the holidays and it was....OK.  It had moments, but I never warmed to the hero and frankly, Yates has written better.  But she did a good job of setting up this book, which features King Kairos kidnapping his Queen, Tabitha, in the hopes of convincing her to not divorce him.

Five years ago Kairos was set to marry another woman.  Until said woman slept with his brother.  Which would be bad enough, but to make it truly a bridge too far the whole sordid affair was caught on camera and sold to the tabloids.  The wedding is literally weeks away and Kairos is bound by his misguided sense of duty.  So what does he do?  He convinces his PA, a poor white trash girl from Iowa who clawed her way through with single-minded determination and education, to marry him.  He lays it out as your classic marriage of convenience, Tabitha accepts, and they get down to the business of making an heir and a spare.  Except, you guessed it, barren desert.  No babies.  And the strain is taking a toll.

Tabitha agreed to the marriage for "reasons."  Kairos' proposal certainly wasn't one full of passion and devotion, so it's not like she was harboring illusions.  But five years of...nothing?  There's literally nothing there.  Kairos looks at her like he looks at a potted plant or a piece of furniture.  She's coming to the realization that while the idea of "passion" scares her (for "reasons") - she also can't stay in this loveless marriage slowly withering away.  So she confronts him with divorce papers on New Year's Eve and whoa boy - passion shows up.  Along with anger.  Before you can say hatefu-- "angry sex" that's what ends up happening on Kairos' office desk.  And wouldn't you know it?  Tabitha finally ends up pregnant.

BECAUSE OF COURSE SHE DOES!

But she's not about to call off the divorce.  Her marriage is a dumpster fire, and she knows it.  Unfortunately Kairos didn't get the memo.  He whisks his wife out of the doctor's office, takes her to his private, secluded island (because, of course) and tells her that they will remain there for two weeks.  He's hoping to convince her to stay.

What follows are a lot of angry, hurt words, a lot of communication that should have happened five years ago, and a hero who holds on to his secrets for entirely too long.  Tabitha bares her soul pretty early on and Kairos makes overtures, but it's always one step forward, two steps back with this guy.  The minute Tabitha gets close to exposing his vulnerabilities, he completely shuts down.  It's so intense with this guy it doesn't just take one secondary character to smack him upside the head....it takes TWO!

For her part, I thought Tabitha had interesting baggage (albeit slightly unrealistic given today's tabloid "news" culture - her secrets should have been unearthed EONS ago!) and she's the brand of HP heroine who gives as good as she gets.  The hero says some awful things to her in anger and she says awful things right back.  This isn't some mouse who slinks off to a corner when the hero is mean to her.  She's at the stage where she's well and truly done.  She doesn't know how she's going to leave, what she's going to do, where she's going to go - but she's leaving thankyouverymuch.

This is a talky book and the characters are both feisty in their anger - so it all does get rather exhausting after a while.  But it's a solid read in a soap opera sort of way, a slightly different feel from what I usually expect from a Yates HP (which would be, say it with me, the fairy tale).  Still, I don't regret that this was my last read of 2017.

Final Grade = B-

#DeckTheHarlequin: Maid Under the Mistletoe

A single Mom heroine, an emotionally wounded hero who has shut himself off from the outside world, and forced proximity during the holiday season.  Yeah, I was all in on Maid Under the Mistletoe by Maureen Child.  Unfortunately it ended up being an instance where the premise was the best thing about the story and the execution left a lot to be desired.

After the death of his wife and toddler son, Sam Henry, an accomplished artist, gave up painting and moved to the mountains of Idaho.  He is in town so rarely that the locals have a running betting pool on when he'll show up again (the last guy who guessed right won $200!).  It's just him and a live-in housekeeper who cooks, cleans and lets him be (for the most part - she does mother hen him with her occasional nagging).  The fly in the ointment is that every December she takes off with a girlfriend for a month-long cruise.  But she tells him not to worry.  Her friend, Joy, is going to come and work as a temp.  Joy's apartment just had an electrical fire and it's going to take a month (at least) for the work to be finished and the apartment habitable again.  So really, it's win-win for everybody involved.

Until Sam actually meets Joy Curran.  For one thing she's young, very pretty, and has a 5-year-old girl, Holly, in tow.  Nobody mentioned Holly.  Or how pretty Joy was.  Or how sweet, nice, charming, and really a breath of fresh air that has begun to infuse light into Sam's dark and lonely world.

This starts out as a pretty solid read.  Sam is Beast to Joy's Beauty.  He's emotionally distant and she's bubbly and sweet.  Unfortunately it all begins to wear down after a short while because that's ALL Joy is.  She's sweet, and cute and naturally she's a great cook.  Sam basically lets her stay because she CAN cook and the idea of living on frozen pizza fails to appeal.  A heroine's worth that is wrapped up in large part because of her domestic skills is one that I would call grating.  Great, she can cook.  I need more than that and frankly, so should the hero.

Holly is a sweet kid and while she's a Plot Moppet, she's at least a realistic one.  She talks a mile a minute, in that stream of conscious way that young children do, and she's obsessed with princesses, fairies and fairy princesses.  So yeah, she's cutesy-wootsy - but hardly the most offensive Plot Moppet I've encountered in Romancelandia and after all, this IS a Christmas romance.

No, where this story slides from "OK, not my thing but still OK" to "You have got to be eff'ing kidding me?!" is when the author breaks the fourth wall and with a sex scene that makes me want to burn this book to the MF'ing ground.  Then I couldn't finish this slim 180+ page Desire fast enough.

Joy has a web design / personal assistant business.  It allows her to work from home and keep Holly out of day care.  For literally no reason that I can decipher (in other words, it does not move the story forward) the author tosses in this little nugget:

"Almost honey," she said, clearing her throat and focusing again on the comments section of her client's website.  For some reason people who read books felt it was okay to go on the author's website and list the many ways the author could have made the book better.  Even when they loved it, they managed to sneak in a couple of jabs.  It was part of Joy's job to remove the comments that went above and beyond a review and deep into the real of harsh criticism.

WHY?!?!?!?!?!  Yes, readers who e-mail the author or leave comments on the author's web site about why a book was "bad" are rude - but WHY IS THIS IN YOUR ROMANCE NOVEL?!?!?!  Because the romance what - needed a side of reading shaming to make us believe in the happy ending?  WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!?

OK, but really - Wendy, you're being too sensitive.  Roll on McDuff.  Just finish the book and slap this bad boy with a C and be done with it.  Well, that was until I got to the sex scene.

"Joy, the downside to things happening by surprise is you're not prepared for it."  She smiled.  "I'd say you were plenty prepared." He rolled again, flopping her over onto the mattress and leaning over her, staring her in the eyes.  "I'm trying to tell you that I hope to hell you're on birth control because I wasn't suited up."

OMG.....WHY?!?!?!?!?!??!!  ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!??!?!?!?  Because OF COURSE our SINGLE MOTHER isn't on birth control.  BECAUSE OMG OF COURSE SHE ISN'T!!!!!  I don't believe in violence but seriously, I want a gun. Or a knife.  Or a really heavy book that I can throw at her head.

But just in case I'm not insulted enough the author doubles down.  Golly, the hero DID have condoms.  They were just in HIS bedroom but they were SO HOT for each other they didn't make it that far and oopsie his penis fell into the heroine and they had unprotected sex instead.

OMG....WHY?!?!?!?!!?  ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!?!?!?!?  SERIOUSLY, THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I just can't even.  I'm done.  I want to run over the Mary Sue heroine, lose the Plot Moppet daughter in the woods, drop the hero off at the nearest remote cave to live out his hermit days and burn this book to the ground.  Merry frickin' Christmas and a bah humbug to you.

Final Grade = D 

#TBRChallenge 2017: Christmas With Her Boss

The Book: Christmas with her Boss by Marion Lennox

The Particulars: Contemporary romance, Harlequin Romance #4205, 2010, Out of Print, Available in Digital

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  It was recommended by someone.  I want to say Sunita?  However, I unearthed it from the depths of the print TBR because Miss Bates has been championing Lennox of late and we tend to be simpatico when it comes to Harlequin.

The Review: Sweet baby, sleeping in the manger, Christmas morning Jesus - where has Marion Lennox been all my life?  Oh, writing a bazillion books for Harlequin.  You've just never read her before Wendy.  You dunderhead.  What a way to end the TBR Challenge for 2017.  Finding a huge backlist I want to glom.

Meg Jardine is in a panic.  She's a personal assistant to billionaire businessman WS McMaster for when he's in his Australian office.  He's a demanding boss who expects a PA to be at his beck and call and keep things running smoothly.  A high pressure job but ideal for Meg's life circumstances.  Her current task is to get him back to Manhattan in time for Christmas.  Minor problem: an air traffic controller's strike.  All flights are grounded.  There is literally no way Mr. McMaster is getting out of Australia.  On top of that, because of all the grounded flights the hotels are booked solid.  She is well and truly screwed...and not in a good way.

William is unthrilled.  Really, like he asks that much of his PA?  She screws up his travel plans?!  OK, so it's not entirely her fault but he's still miffed.  And now she's suggesting that since there's no hotels available and the building is going to be shut down all weekend (no AC, in Australia, in December? He'd melt within 15 minutes) he can come home with her.  Literally with no other option, he agrees.  Not realizing that home means Meg, her grandmother and her teenage half-brother out in the middle of nowhere on a dairy farm.  With the Internet down.  And crap cell phone reception.  Maybe he can swim back to Manhattan?

We all know what happens next.  The buttoned-up suit who keeps his staff at arms length (it's "Ms. Jardine" and "Mr. McMaster") ends up falling for his lovely assistant once close proximity and "adventures" happen.  Raised by distant parents, William is living a temporary life.  He has temporary girlfriends, temporary staff depending on what city he's in, and temporary friends.  For once in his life he actually has holiday plans which is why he's so desperate to get back to Manhattan and so annoyed with Meg for not making it happen.

Meg is haunted by the death of her parents, her half-brother's medical issues and a grandmother who is still spry but not getting any younger.  When she's not at William's beck and call as a PA, she's stationed at the family homestead living the life of a dairy farmer.  Short answer - Meg doesn't really have a life that doesn't involve her loving family and cows.  Dating?  Yeah, not so much.  Romance?  Well one of her heifers got loose and met an enterprising bull - but that doesn't really count.  She's attracted to William because, hello, the man is hot.  But she's very aware of professional boundaries and the fact that he's "out of her league."  She's not the sort to even entertain the fantasy of William McMaster but once they're away from work and all those professional boundaries get stripped away?  All bets are off.

What I liked about this story was how cozy it felt and the hot Australian Christmas weather was a nice change of pace from the usual Romancelandia holiday fa-la-la-la-la.  It's also a boss/secretary romance where both characters are very aware of professional boundaries and the importance of keeping them.  Once they cross over that line (and this is a Harlequin Romance, so we're talking about a kiss not a roll in the hay...), both characters struggle with what they have done.  It makes up the majority of the second half conflict and the Black Moment.

This all being said, as much as I loved this story (OMG, COMFORT READ ALERT!), the romance isn't quite as strong as I'd like.  William is emotionally distant, kind of a foreboding ass early on, and the story takes place over a weekend - well it's just hard to go from that to jumping into "I love you, let's get married."  Yeah, they work together and yeah they learn a lot about each other over the course of the story, but it still comes off as rather fast.

But heck, it's a holiday romance and it ticks all the boxes.  In a year when not many books held my attention for more than a chapter at a time, I wanted everyone and everything to leave me the heck alone so I could read.  I'm reading.  Don't bother me unless someone is on fire and even then...tell me who is on fire first so I can decide if I want to put this book down.  I'm going to ding this on the lower end of the B rating scale, but really - it was so lovely and so....well just so.  Now I'm off to scour the TBR to see if I have any more Marion Lennox lurking there.

Final Grade = B-

#DeckTheHarlequin: Never Christmas Without You

Never has it been more obvious why a book would be in my TBR than with Never Christmas Without You by Nana Malone and Reese Ryan.  Two novellas, both Christmas themes, both with friends-to-lovers tropes.  Shut up and take my money.  But what started out working fairly well for me slid downhill the further along I got into the stories - to the point where the Ryan entry hit my Big Honkin' Red Flag Rage Button.  You know what this means.  Yep, spoilers.  There shall be spoilers.  Consider yourselves warned.

Just for the Holidays by Nana Malone

Justin Morrison is from a hotel-owning-running-whatever dynasty.  When his father passed away, Daddy Dearest, cut Justin out and left the hotel business to Justin's cousin, whom naturally he cannot stand.  Justin took this rage and opened his own boutique hotel. All by the time he's 25.  And of course it's a big success.  Because that's how things work in Romancelandia.  Anyway, his grandmother, whom he adores, has a medical episode that sends Justin into a panic.  She'll be fine, but she lays down the law.  He will come home for Christmas and he will bring his girlfriend with him.  Minor problem: there is no girlfriend.  Justin made one up so his grandma would stop trying to set him up with every eligible female that crossed her path.  What to do?

What he does is rope in his BFF, up-and-coming artist, Alex Winters into the charade.  She's hesitant for a couple of reasons: 1) she's a terrible liar and 2) she's secretly been in love with Alex forever.  Of course he's clueless because, well, he's a man.  And now she's agreeing to spend the holidays with him and his family playing happy couple on Catalina Island.

This actually starts out pretty great.  There's a bit too much "tell" over "show" in the early going, but Justin and Alex have a spark and it's the kind of set-up tailor made for a Hallmark Holiday Movie.  The story is set in both Los Angeles and on Catalina Island.  You've got this big ol' family, the root of Justin's baggage, and a family matriarch who doesn't suffer fools gladly.  I was rolling with it until a completely unnecessary throw away piece of dialogue that drove me insane.  Justin and Alex are at the point where they're acknowledging there's a spark between them that goes beyond friendship when the idiot says this:

"You're the sexiest woman I've ever known.  You don't even try.  Most girls I know, it's all smoke and mirrors.  Hair extensions, nails, make-up.  These women look like completely different people when I wake up with them in the morning."

EXCUSE ME?!?!?!  Maybe this is just me, but I hope all those "fake" women Justin has been wasting his time with come back like the Ghost of Christmas Past and claw out his eyes with their fake nails and strangle him with their hair extensions.  But maybe that's just me.  This kind of thing drives me bonkers - the tearing down of every other woman to illustrate to the reader (like a damn sledgehammer upside the head) that the heroine is a "real woman" and that she is "The One."  Ugh.  Romance authors, for the love of all that is holy STOP DOING THIS!

I know this is a crazy thing to nitpick about, but it was like a bucket of cold water and the story never quite recovers.  Especially when Alex goes running off and starts listening to nonsense from the villainous characters.  So what started out as a solid B read?  Yeah, not so much.

Final Grade = C

His Holiday Gift by Reese Ryan

This is part of the author's Pleasure Cove series and features prodigal son, Dash Williams.  Dash agrees to meet his long lost BFF, Mikayla Mitchell, at a coffee shop.  They used to be thick as thieves, until Dash decided to date her step-sister Jess.  Given that Mick, the geeky girl in their school, had a major crush on Dash this went over as well as expected.  Dash is happy to reconnect, until Mick drops the bomb.  Jess is dead and her 6-year-old daughter, Maddie, is probably Dash's kid.  Needless to say, Jess is portrayed as a conniving, manipulative piece of work so Dash had no clue he had a daughter.

This set-up is rife with problems, but Ryan sure can lay on the Drama Llama.  For one thing, Mick just takes Jess's word for it that Dash is Evil Incarnate - never mind that Mick has no illusions of her step-sister's character.  I could buy this somewhat because Dash hurt Mick THAT badly, so she was set-up to believe the absolute worst of him.  But once Jess is dead?  Yeah, no.  Yes, Mikayla is raising (and adopted) Maddie, but the kid has a father.  Mikayla may think Dash has washed his hands of Maddie but once Jess is dead?  All bets are off.  The child's mother is dead and the father should have been looped in on that minor detail pronto.

Then there's the fact that Dash basically admits to his sister that the reason he's starting to notice Mikayla now, and not all those years ago, is because she's gone from ugly duckling to swan.  Our girl, she's stacked.  Is this realistic?  Yes.  Is it what I want in a romance novel?  No.  I want the damn fantasy.  I want the hero to have always been in love with the heroine but just too dense to realize it.  And Dash says this at the end, but given this previous conversation with his sister where he admits he's noticing Mick now because she's va-va-voom?  Yeah, it's harshing on my fantasy buzz.  Considerably.

But man, the drama is great.  And it hums along until the author hits on my biggest pet peeve in the universe.  The whole Biology Reigns Supreme In Romancelandia Ideal.  While out shopping for Christmas presents Dash sees Mick getting all misty over baby clothes.

He was trying to comfort her, but all she heard was him referring to Maddie as someone else's kid.  Maddie wasn't someone else's kid.  She was her daughter as much as she was his.  "You'll have kids of your own someday."

But wait, there's more!  See, Dear Reader, for reasons Mikayla believes she's incapable of having "her own children" and when Dash finally confesses he loves her she tells him her Deep Dark Secret and oh noes what if he wants more kids someday?  To which Dash says if they want to expand their family it's OK.  There's adoption, there's surrogacy etc. etc.  OK, Wendy getting less angry.  Wendy coming down off the ledge until....

THE EPILOGUE.

Take one wild guess what sort of epilogue we get with this story.  Go ahead.  Guess.  That's right.  NEVER FEAR!  Because the hero has AMAZING SUPER SPERM AND BIOLOGY IS ONCE AGAIN BACK IN ORDER!  HALLELUJAH!  PRAISE JEEBUS.

I get this is my baggage but gods I HATE THIS GARBAGE!  I have friends who were adopted.  I have friends who have adopted.  One of my nieces is adopted.  This ideal that still exists in Romancelandia that a woman ain't a woman unless she can squirt out 2.5 kids is the sort of conflict that belongs only in historicals and it's the only place I can marginally deal with it.  In contemporaries it's just flat-out rage inducing and makes me want a bucket of brain bleach.  What a disappointment.

Final Grade = D 

Reminder: #TBRChallenge for December 2017

For those of you participating in the 2017 TBR Challenge, this is a reminder that your commentary is "due" on Wednesday, December 20.  This month's theme is Holiday.

Otherwise known as the theme Wendy makes y'all suffer through because she can't say no to Christmas romances.  However any holiday will do.  If you have Valentine's Day or Halloween covered in your TBR those totally work!  But what if the idea of a holiday romance sets your teeth on edge and you'd rather be boiled in oil than slog through a Christmas book?  Hey,  no problem! Remember: the themes are optional!  The whole point of the TBR Challenge is to read something, anything, that has been languishing for far too long.

I want to thank everyone who participated and followed along with the 2017 TBR Challenge.  Join us in 2018!  You can participate on any social media platform by using the #TBRChallenge hashtag.  If you're a blogger who would like to sign-up, please see this post for more information.

Top 5 Unusual Historicals for December 2017

For those of you who pay attention to publishing cycles, December traditionally tends to be a dead month.  Thank heavens for self-publishing otherwise this month's Unusual Historicals column would have been a non-starter!  There's a nice bit of variety this month and hopefully a few gems just waiting to be discovered.  Here is what caught my eye for December:

Besieged and Betrothed by Jenni Fletcher (medieval)

Bound to her enemy

Ruthless warrior Lothar the Frank has laid siege to Castle Haword, but there’s a fiery redhead in his way—and she’s not backing down!

More tomboy than trembling maiden, Lady Juliana Danville would rather die than lose the castle. When she’s caught on opposite sides of a war, a marriage bargain is brokered to bring peace. But is blissful married life possible when Juliana has a dangerous secret hidden within the castle walls?

Fletcher is a newer author to Harlequin Historical, and this is her third release with them (her second medieval).  Naturally I have her first two books lurking in the depths of my Kindle (because of course I do).  I love, love, love tomboy heroines and looks like our fiery redhead must choose marriage in order to save her home.  I'm all in on this one.

Miracle on Ladies' Mile by Joanna Shupe (novella, Gilded Age)

A holiday novella set in New York City's Gilded Age, where anything is possible...

After losing his beloved wife, department store owner Alexander Armstrong seems incapable of anything other than work, despite his ache to be a better father to his daughter.

When he encounters Grace, a charming shop girl designing the store’s holiday window displays, he struggles to accept that perhaps miracles do happen in the most unlikely of places…

There's been a lot of chatter about Shupe's new series with Avon but I haven't seen much (OK any...) mention of this self-published novella.  I'll be frank.  I am, literally, the only reader on the planet who DNF'ed Shupe's celebrated debut novel with Kensington and the "DNF stink" has kept me from trying another one of her books.  WHICH KILLS ME BECAUSE OMG SHE WRITES IN THE GILDED AGE!  But this is a novella and frankly it sounds like Wendy catnip.  I LOVE historical department store settings and the whole single dad thing gets me every. single. time.  I'm going to try this.

The Swan by Piper Huguley (novella, Americana)

A beautiful woman with secrets comes to Noelle to confront a powerful person with the truth...and only six days left to save the town.

Avis Smith is willing to go to Noelle to marry a man she doesn’t know in order to avenge a fourteen year wrong--her abandonment to a life of misery and abuse when she was just six years old. In order to get to Noelle, she has to lie about who she is, but her thirst for vengeance is so strong, she transforms herself into the pious, beautiful bride that JD Jones wants. Still, she never expected to be abandoned at the altar.

 His work as an abolitionist and fighter for justice will not allow storekeeper Liam Fulton to turn his back on the beautiful woman his archenemy is willing to leave at the altar. He figures a way to help Avis out of her predicament, offers to showcase her in his store so that other potential grooms in Noelle will see her and might want to marry the young woman with the long and elegant neck.

When swans mate, they mate for life. When Liam offers to help Avis, he never expects that in working with her to find a resolution to her problem, he discovers a fierce need to protect her. Avis doesn’t know that she might find something better than what she was looking for--a new way to a family and bonds of a strong and life-long lasting love.

This is actually book seven in the multi-author series, The 12 Days of Christmas Mail Order Brides.  It appears to be one of those series where the authors are all operating in the same world (and using the mail order bride hook) but the stories appear to function well as stand-alone reads.  I'm highlighting Piper's book because of my past experience with reading her (she tends to create a wonderful sense of place in her stories - you're reading a historical y'all, there's no mistaking that!) and I follow her on Twitter.  Note to those of you with Kindle Unlimited - it looks like the entire series is available there.  Gorge at the trough mail order bride fans!

The Rancher's Inconvenient Bride by Carol Arens (western)

A Wyoming marriage of convenience…

Agatha Magee has put her difficult past behind her and is living an independent life at the circus. But when William English rescues her—from being shot out of a cannon—their scandalous situation leaves them no option but to get married!

William has no intention of making this more than a marriage in name only. Agatha must somehow change his mind if she’s to have the family she’s always yearned for…

Arens has been writing for Harlequin Historical for a while and her backlist is chock full of westerns.  Has Wendy read her yet?  Of course not.  She's buried in the TBR of Doom. This sounds really interesting!  A heroine in the circus?  A misguided hero who "rescues" her?  I'll give this one a whirl.  And I know y'all usually rely on me for such information (HH, western, what do you mean you've never read her Wendy?!) - but opinions welcome.

A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner (Regency, reprint)

London 1815, just before Waterloo...

After her noble father disowned her, Lady Serena Ravenshaw clawed her way from streetwalker to courtesan to prosperous innkeeper. Now she’s feared and respected from one end of London to the other, by the lowest dregs of the city’s underworld and the upper echelons of the beau monde, and she’ll do anything to keep it that way.

When mild-mannered chemist Solomon Hathaway turns up in her office, asking for her help, she immediately recognizes him from one fateful night years before. She’s been watching and waiting for him for years—so she can turn the tables and put him in her debt, of course, and not because he looked like an angel and was kind to her when she needed it most.

She’s determined not to wonder what put that fresh grief in his eyes. But after a betrayal even Serena didn’t expect, she must put aside her pride and work with Solomon to stop a ring of French spies and save her beloved inn, her freedom—and England itself.

Originally published by Dorchester, then reprinted by Samhain - I imagine Lerner throwing her hands up in the air saying "Screw it, I'm self-publishing it this time!"  OK, seriously - HOW DID I NOT KNOW ABOUT THIS BOOK?!?  OK, so I knew about it.  But not that the whole heroine gets disowned becomes a streetwalker then a courtesan then an innkeeper "thing."  I AM HERE FOR THIS ALL DAY LONG PEOPLE!  Ahem.  I'm blaming this on not reading reviews closely and new back cover copy.  For those of us who missed it the first...and second time around, at the time of this blog post it's a sweet 99 cents in digital.

What Historicals are you looking forward to this month?

All Aboard! #TBRChallenge 2018 Sign-Up

Of course I didn't forget.  It's that time again Bat Cave and Romancelandia residents!  Time to look ahead to the new year, when hope will (hopefully) spring eternal and we begin making big plans to finally (ha ha ha!) conquer our To-Be-Read piles mountain ranges.  It's time to sign up for the the 2018 #TBRChallenge!

I've decided to make some changes this year in the hopes that more casual followers of the Challenge will join in on the fun.  There's, technically, no official sign-up this year.  Wha?!?!  That's right.

• If you're on social media all you need to do is use the #TBRChallenge hashtag.  
• You can use this hashtag on any day, at any time - but we're still going to concentrate on the 3rd Wednesday of every month to kick our commentary into high gear.  
• The idea is to have at least one day a month where we can always count on there being book chatter.

Participation can happen across all social media platforms and your participation can vary month to month (hey, life happens).  This all being said, if you're like me and plan to have the bulk of your commentary live on a blog please "officially" sign-up by leaving me a comment and a link to your blog.

Why?  Let's get real for a moment.  Blogs are dying and Wendy loves blogs.  So if you are a dinosaur, like me, and still have a blog, I'd like to promote it even if it's in this small way.  I'll provide a link to your blog on the #TBRChallenge 2018 Information Page and hopefully readers will follow you, like what they see, and become new blog followers.

Sound good?  Of course it does!  So what are the themes for 2018?  So glad you asked!

January 17 - We Love Short Shorts! (shorter reads)
February 21 - Backlist Glom (author with multiple books in your TBR)
March 21 - Sugar or Spice (closed door romance or spicy romance)
April 18 - Kicking It Old School (original publication date older than 10 years)
May 16 - Contemporary
June 20 - Comfort Read
July 18 - Favorite Trope
August 15 - Series (book that's part of a series)
September 19 - Historical
October 17 - Paranormal or Romantic Suspense
November 21 - Cover Girl (a book with a pretty cover - or a horrid one)
December 19 - Holiday (any holiday!)

As always, the themes are optional.  Don't like 'em, don't have to use them.  See how easy this is?  I mean really, how could you not want to join in on the fun?

#DeckTheHarlequin: Redeeming the Rogue Knight

There's that old saying about the villain being the hero of his own story, which is why I think so many romance readers love it when an author dusts off a villain from a previous book, redeems him and turns him into a hero.  There's always that added anticipation of "OK Author, how exactly are you going to pull this off?" and it makes for sigh-worthy reading when lo and behold, they manage to do it.

Roger Danby served as the villain in one of my memorable reads from 2016, The Blacksmith's Wife by Elisabeth Hobbes.  Roger isn't a twirling mustache kind of villain - no, he's somehow worse.  He trifles with the heroine, tries to "c'mon baby..." her into bed, discards her for greener pastures, and when she finally settles into marriage with his half-brother he comes slinking back around.  I'd say the guy has the morals of an alley cat, but that would be an insult to alley cats everywhere.

So how exactly is the author going to pull this guy off as hero-worthy in her latest, Redeeming the Rogue Knight?  Well, it's going to take some doing.

After wearing out his welcome in Yorkshire the last time, Roger left to fight in France, eventually joining a group of mercenaries.  He and his squire, Thomas, are back in England to deliver A Very Important Message and recruit men.  They're enjoying the hospitality of a Lord when Thomas makes the mistake of getting caught in a compromising position with the man's daughter.  As they beat a hasty retreat, Roger takes an arrow in the shoulder when they are, naturally, pursued.

However, as luck would have it, Thomas grew up in the area and his family's inn is close by.  Unbeknownst to Thomas, his father is dead and it's only his sister, Lucy, and his nephew, Robbie in residence.  Ahem, his bastard nephew Robbie.  Lucy, you see, never had the benefit of a husband. 

Her brother has been gone for four years.  Four. Long. Years.  So long that she had given up on his ever returning.  And now he's back, bringing trouble she doesn't need to her door.  As if this weren't shocking enough, the man who is with her brother is gravely injured, but still manages to accost her with a punishing kiss (that she enjoys) and a grope (which she does not).  Needless to say their relationship does not get off to the smoothest of starts.

This is a romance that offers sprinkles of both internal and external conflict.  Externally, we've got Roger's injury, the men who are pursuing him, and the message he has for King Edward squirreled away in his saddle bags.  Internally, we've got Roger's past (whoa boy...) and Lucy's tattered reputation.  She had other employment, but came home to the inn when she got pregnant, refusing to the name the father (although it's not kept a secret from the reader) and the only reason her father didn't disown her was because he was dying.  Needless to say, a woman with her reputation, with a bastard child, her inn isn't exactly thriving with business.

This will be a book that will likely divide readers as neither character is what you would call terribly "likable."  Anyone who read the first book already knows how problematic Roger is and he takes his sweet time redeeming himself into any semblance of decency for most of this book.  But you know what?  It works.  I would have loved more about his time in France, mostly because it would have sped up the redemption in the reader's eyes, but to have Roger go from smarmy to choir boy by the end of this book would have been too much.  Instead the author pairs him with the perfect woman and that's where the redemption comes into play. 

To call Lucy prickly would be the understatement of the century and I suspect there will be readers who will tar and feather her for it.  Our girl has had to make some questionable decisions and she spars with Roger for most of this book.  She doesn't trust him (at all) for at least the first half and after that it's wary at best.  I'm sure she'll be accused of being "too mean" to the hero but one, he deserves it, and two, when you factor in Lucy's past you can hardly blame the woman.

What I'll end up remembering most about this story are The Lady Truth Bombs that the author sets off like mini-grenades throughout the story (especially in light of current events). You know why Lucy is so mean to Roger?  Well, because he deserves it.  Even when he tries to do the right thing he's such a hypocritical ass about it that Lucy finally has to lose her last semblance of tolerance.

"I know you want me and you know I want you too.  I've resisted you and tried to ignore the feelings and desires I know will only lead to misery but it hasn't been easy."
... 

"But even if my heart did not race when you look at me in that manner, I won't be one of those women.  All men leave eventually.  It's just a question of time."

There's a certain amount of genius at play here.  Lucy, a woman who had sex, got pregnant, had her son, and is now living with the consequences of her tattered reputation is paired with Roger who has dallied, flirted, and bedded half the women in England and likely a quarter of those living in France.  Yet he is celebrated while she is the pariah.  Ultimately this is the internal conflict at play in the story that I found the most intriguing and made this romantic match-up rather delicious.  Through Lucy Roger sees what a monumental jackass he's been.

The pacing felt a little off to me at times, a bit too leisurely in the beginning and too much of a race in the closing chapters, but the romantic match-up is memorable and what the author says, through the character of Lucy, speaks to the female experience since...well, sadly, the dawn of time. 

Final Grade = B

Postscript: Sigh, I should probably mention that there aren't any sex scenes in this book since readers seem to get bent out of shape over such things.  Honestly?  I'm glad there aren't.  Given the baggage (Lucy's especially!) these two characters burning up the sheets would have felt jarring and out of place in the story's narrative.  Instead readers get some passionate kisses and a rather tender closed door scene that serves to build trust between the couple and bring them emotionally, closer together.