Mini-Reviews: You Can't Go Home Again

It's too soon to tell just yet, but I might (just might) be starting to crawl out of the slump that claimed part of June and all of July for me. This, obviously, includes blogging since you may have noticed the dust bunnies starting to gather in the corners around here. To that end I thought I would talk about two reads that probably didn't help matters in the slump department, a reread from my teenage years (that I should have left there) and a new book from an author well represented in my keeper stash that fell utterly flat.

Fun fact, I first read The Devil on Horseback by Victoria Holt for a book report in my World Literature class my senior year of high school.  I didn't remember much about it other than it was Holt's French Revolution book and like any teenager who sat at her mother's knee watching The Young & The Restless, I got sucked into the Soap Opera Drama Llama plot.  I thought it would be fun to relisten to it on audiobook and boy howdy, that old adage that you can't go home again certainly applies here.

Minella is the 18-year-old daughter of a single mother school teacher living a somewhat comfortable life thanks to the generosity of the nearby lord of the manor. Into this scene waltzes Charles-Auguste, a wickedly handsome French aristocrat whose daughter befriends Minella.  The Count is soon putting on the full court press with Minella.  Never mind he's married (the wife naturally dies under mysterious circumstances over the course of the story). Never mind he once "accidentally" killed a young boy in a drunken riding accident (he "adopted" the boy's twin brother - so truly he's a prince! 🙄).  Never mind the more Minella tries to throw cold water on the proceedings, the more he pursues.  Soon the Count's daughter gets herself in a spot of trouble and having no better options - Minella finds herself relocating to France to bail the chit out while falling deeper under the spell of the Count.  Oh, and minor detail that tensions are starting to bubble over in France and revolution is afoot.

Holt had a way of painting a scene with words and Davina Porter is an always reliable audiobook narrator. I liked the idea of this story but it features all the hallmarks that made old school Gothics rather annoying - namely the hero is a sack of human garbage while the heroine continually wrings her hands and makes excuses for him.  Naturally by the end of it nothing truly was ever his fault even though a leopard doesn't change his spot and he's still amazingly insufferable. Oh, and the French Revolution?  Thinly drawn with zero nuance. Better historical fiction has been written against this backdrop - this isn't anywhere near on the list.  I should have left this one to the recesses of fond teen memories.

Final Grade = D

Laura Lee Guhrke has three books in my keeper stash (Breathless, Conor's Way and To Dream Again). She's reliable with the angst and does a great job writing adversarial, bantering romantic couples.  It's been a dog's age since she's had a new book out, so I was super pumped to score an ARC of Bookshop Cinderella. 

Evie Harlow runs a small London bookshop specializing in rare books, with a small loyal clientele. She's got limited prospects, but has set her cap on a childhood friend who is (of course) an idiot who doesn't deserve her devotion and (of course) takes advantage of her at every turn. But Evie hadn't clued into that yet when I decided to give up on this story.

Anyway, through a series of circumstances, she meets Maximillian Shaw, Duke of Westbourne. Blah, blah, blah, stuff happens, and he convinces Evie to help him with a wager. He's going to turn her into the diamond of the Season and help her find a husband. She turns down his offer flat, until (of course) disaster strikes her bookshop and she has no choice in the matter.

Max had previously married for love, to a commoner who was crushed under the boot of the ton - ergo Max has vowed his next marriage will be purely transactional with a woman "of his class."  Evie is most definitely a commoner, vulnerable and lacking in self-confidence thanks to her experiences at finishing school and a cousin who won't let her forget them.

This is the kind of story I normally could go for. Upright heroine with vulnerable core, hero who gets blindsided despite his best attentions, and a Pygmalion theme to boot!  Unfortunately it all reads so horribly flat and dull.  There's no life in this story, in these characters.  It feels very much paint-by-numbers, like the author was simply going through the motions.  What we have here is a failure to launch.  I'd read a few chapters, put my Kindle down, and it would stay down for days - then days turned into weeks.  Once I hit 40% I realized two things: 1) I didn't care one jot about any of it and 2) this book was likely going to end up being the very definition of a C / Meh It's OK, I Guess? read - if it was lucky.  I took that as a sign it was time for me to move on and try to get my reading mojo back with something else in my ginormous TBR pile.

Final Grade = DNF

Reading Year In Review 2020

Well, that wasn't very much fun. I think most of us are ready to put 2020 firmly in the rearview mirror and move forward into 2021 hoping for better.  Dear Lord, please be better.  2020 was a challenging year for many of you, for a variety of big and small reasons, and I'm no different.  My reading challenge every year is always to get through 100 books. I'm a slow reader by Romancelandia and blogging standards - so hitting 100 books is a pretty big deal for me. Yeah, 2020 saw me getting through 74.  Not great, especially when you consider I count DNFs, novellas, audiobooks - I count everything y'all, my challenge my rules. Here's how the number broke down:

5 Stars (A grade): 4
4 Stars (B grade): 21
3 Stars (C grade ; low B-): 28
2 Stars (D grade): 11
1 Star (F grade): 3
DNF (Did Not Finish): 7
Audiobooks: 13

These numbers are all in my usual ballpark, but 2020 saw more 3-Star reads than 4-Star reads and I always find that depressing.  Here's hoping that ship gets righted for 2021.  

Now, on to the fun part - the actual books. As a reminder, and for those of you new here, my "best of year" list is the best books I READ during said year. It's not specific to books published in that year.  There's older titles featured - mainly because I am always perpetually behind in my reading.  Now, on to the books:

The Romance (in no particular order):

The Lady's Companion by Carla Kelly (Traditional Regency, 1996) - This was my best romance read of the year and the fact it was published in 1996 isn't exactly lost on me. Gentry spinster heroine whose Daddy has ruined them financially decides to take her destiny in her own hands and accepts a job as a lady's companion to a cantankerous widow. She finds an ally and friend in the widow's bailiff. Compelling conflict, emotionally gut-wrenching, and tightly plotted. It's amazing, it's available digitally. Just read it.

To Dream Again by Laura Lee Guhrke (Historical romance, 1995) - This was a reread for me and the title link will take you to my original blog review from 2005. Second son comes home to England with the dream of making children's toys and buys the heroine's factory after the bank calls in her loan after her husband dies. Never mind she's the one keeping the business afloat while her husband chased one get rich quick scheme after another. A prickly heroine written in a time when those weren't the norm who is all out of f*cks when it comes to men. That said, parts of the story have not aged well which I detail a more in my GoodReads review. At one point the self-published digital edition was widely available but at the time of this post it's available via Kindle Unlimited.

Slow Dance with the Best Man by Sophie Pembroke (Harlequin Romance, 2017) - The Harlequin Romance line is one of my favorites because the books feel like warm hugs. Typecast Hollywood actor falls for the heroine, who is gunning for a managerial position at her hometown's Gothic manor that's been converted to a posh hotel. A fluffy concoction with the pleasing Hollywood star falls for A Nobody fantasy. I'm glad I have more Pembroke in my TBR.

Redemption of the Maverick Millionaire by Michelle Douglas (Harlequin Romance, 2020) - A hero who did the heroine dirty swoops into her adopted hometown looking to make amends, only to end up making a muck of things.  Basically this book is one long grovel, because boy howdy did the hero screw up.  Also, it's a small town romance where the author doesn't completely sweep the challenges of small town living under the rug.

Cinderella Unmasked by Susannah Erwin (Harlequin Desire, 2020) - Erwin wrote a book featuring a hero running for political office and I ended up really enjoying it. That's some kind of miracle for 2020. Heroine whose family was done wrong by hero's family ends up falling head over feet. A smitten hero in pursuit who is genuinely a nice guy (not a brooding, angsty playboy!), compelling family conflict, and a Cinderella trope that avoids heavy-handed rescue fantasy. After just two books Erwin is my newest autobuy.

Not Romance, Still Great (in no particular order):

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe (Nonfiction, 2018) - I read this based off Miss Bates' recommendation and this was easily the book of the year for me. At the end of 1972, Jean McConville, mother of 10, was dragged from her Northern Ireland home by the IRA, never to be seen again. It's a story of violence, of politics, where there are no heroes, and it was by far the most riveting book I had read in a dog's age. I cannot recommend it enough. I made all the incoherent great book noises during and after I finished it.

Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes Who Fought Them by Jennifer Wright (Nonfiction, 2017) - I've got Sasha Devlin to thank for this recommendation and this was a great listen on audio. Kind of weird to read a book about plagues that was written pre-COVID, and frustrating in that humans have this uncanny knack for repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Engaging, written with the layperson in mind, with a touch of gallows' humor. I really enjoyed this and even learned some stuff.

Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey (Dystopian, 2020) - A dystopian western that's queer and feminist AF.  Fleeing an arranged marriage when her best friend (and lover) is murdered, the heroine hooks up with a subversive band of traveling librarians. It's a slim book (category romance length) so the world building isn't terribly intricate, but I loved the feminist themes of the story and got sucked into the western world like whoa.  Not a typical read for yours truly, and one that I'm hoping will become a series.

Prairie Lotus by Linda Sue Park (Historical children's fiction, 2020) - After her mother dies, 14-year-old half-Chinese heroine moves with her white father to the Dakota territory. The author grew up loving the Little House series, while recognizing all the inherent problems with that series.  There are a lot of heavy themes in this story (racism, injustice, and the heroine is assaulted at one point - not raped) but it never feels like a heavy book. It's hopeful, with a lovely sense of place and history.  

When I started thinking about this blog post my impression was that I had a pretty dire reading year - but as I looked back I realized that there were gems - it's just said gems were buried in between mediocrity and books I'd rather forget. So long 2020. Please do let the door smack you on the way out.

How To Lose A Duke In Ten Days

This trend towards cutesy titles tends to set my teeth on edge, but in the case of How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days by Laura Lee Guhrke, the title at least makes sense when you read the story.  The heroine has ten days and she most definitely wants to lose the duke.  Too bad he's not inclined to get lost.

While being the second entry in Guhrke's American Heiress in London series, this story stands alone quite well.  Edie Ann Jewell is the heiress in question, in London to snag a husband after her options dry up in New York.  She as no desire for a husband but has even less desire to go back to America.  She's at a ball when she overhears gossip about the new Duke of Margrave.  Stuart is the spare, and while prepared to be the duke, feels no joy for the responsibility now thrust upon him.  The coffers are bare, the holdings in disrepair, and his clueless relations expect their healthy allowances to just keep magically appearing.  All Stuart wants is to get back to Africa, where he's been living the life of perpetual explorer.

Edie hears this and thinks "Oh happy day!"  She has the gumption to proposition Stuart.  He marries her, he gets to go back to Africa, and she lives the life of independent wife while running the estate.  Oh, and she'll deal with his annoying family as well.  She gets to stay out of New York, has the protection of being married without all the marital obligation, and he gets to go back to Africa to live out the rest of his days.  They shake hands, they agree, life is good.  Until it all changes for Stuart and he comes home to England wanting to make Edie his wife in more than name only.  A development she is not terribly pleased about. 

I've seen a lot of glowing reviews for this title, and to be honest, this was a second half book for me.  It all starts out in a manner that didn't really quite work for me.  Edie, while positively intriguing in the first book of the series, is more like a little girl running scared here.  Stuart's motivations for suddenly wanting a "real marriage" didn't always gel for me and on top of this?  Edie's got a precocious tween sister who has charmingly rebellious stamped on her forehead.  The nice thing about babies in romance novels is they don't talk.  Just saying.  That said, I will admit the girl grew on me after a while, and eventually she is dispatched off page to allow the Edie/Stuart romance to blossom without her meddling.

But over the course of the early chapters things smooth out.  Edie's motivations come into stronger focus, and Stuart is your classic Hero In Pursuit, a trope hard to hate on (at least in my opinion).  Also Guhrke is one of the best dialogue writers in the business, and this story features all of her trademarks, from the banter to the flirting to the sparring to the tension and chemistry.  Edie may be running away for a good portion, but at least you understand why and she has a way of giving as good as she gets when it comes to Stuart.  Neither of these two is going down without a fight.

I ended up enjoying this story quite a bit, although the epilogue continues to stay lodged in my brain and give me pause.  It's happily not a blissfully big with child sappy epilogue, it's more Machiavellian in nature.  I'm sure 99% of readers will probably be fine with it.  There's some justice that must be mete out, and it is.  However it's the outcome of this justice, the plotting behind it, and ultimately the result that made a tiny bit of me recoil inside.  If you're a bit more biblical in that sense, you'll probably have no qualms.  As is, I'm not going to lie, it left an odd last impression for me - thereby knocking things back about half a grade.  Otherwise, an enjoyable entry in a fun series from Guhrke.

Final Grade = B-

When The Marquess Met His Match

I know every author wants readers who will love their books, but sometimes I think that makes for a harsh mistress.  Maybe I'm the only one who does this, but when an author manages to not only write my favorite romance novel of all time (Breathless) but has written two other "keepers" in the Bat Cave stash (To Dream Again and Conor's Way) - I'm always afraid I'll judge Laura Lee Guhrke, perhaps unfairly, based on her past performances and my expectations.  I started When The Marquess Met His Match, her first new release in two years, with some hesitancy.  I mean, if I don't love it to bits, does that make the book a failure?  The answer is, of course, no.  I liked it.  I really did like it.  I didn't outright love it - but it's still a good read.

Lady Belinda Featherstone is a young widow, which is just the way she likes it.  Her family was "new money" back in the US, which means none of the snooty blue bloods there would even bother to look her way.  So when a dashing British nobleman sweeps her off her feet, she falls head over heels and agrees to marry him.  Only to find out after the fact that he doesn't feel the same way about her and married her only for her sizable dowry.  When her husband dies while in the arms of his latest mistress, Belinda is left with nothing.  Charles burned through her dowry and Daddy lost the family fortune in the last stock market crash.  So Belinda must rely on her friends, her connections and luck - making herself over as a matchmaker.  She pairs up lovely American heiresses who cannot crack society at home, with British lords looking for an influx of cash.  Belinda, naturally, gets a finder's fee, and everything is going along swimmingly - until Nicholas, Marquess of Trubridge shows up at her door.

Nicholas has been living in Paris for the last several years and is great chums with Belinda's brother-in-law.  It's a connection that does not serve him well, given that their collective reputations precede them.  Deeply estranged from his father (a Duke), Nicholas is home to fetch a bride because Daddy has cut off his trust fund.  Nicholas has spent his entire life doing whatever will displease his father the most, so he gets it in his head to marry an American heiress - then he can tell Daddy to go to the devil. The problem is that he needs Belinda's help and she seems rather disinclined to do so.

I've always felt Guhrke is a bit under appreciated, skill-wise, as a writer - and the reasons that make her really good are on display here.  She excels at writing adversarial relationships.  The kind of romances where the hero and heroine are at odds, do a lot of verbal sparring, and try to one-up each other for a good portion of the story.  These are not easy to write, with many a writer trying to pull it off and leaving the reader feeling like they just spent 300+ pages with jackasses.  Guhrke has a way of writing these types of stories with a lot of verve and spunk.  Part of the reason she excels at this is because of her characters.  Her characters tend to be practical, forthright people - but with mountains of hidden, aching vulnerabilities.  Her very best stories, in my estimation, feature heroines who aren't stupid, know the way the world works, put on a brave face for the world - but hide a lot of inner pain. 

Both Nicholas and Belinda have their hidden vulnerabilities.  Nicholas has major Daddy Issues, and basically plays the rake to show the man that he cannot control him.  Belinda put her heart on the line and had her girlhood dreams of the fairy tale crushed by her rat-bastard husband.  They both worked for me as characters, but they're not always easy people to like.  Nicholas makes no bones about wanting to marry for money, but at least he's honest about it.  Belinda is a bit more troublesome.  For someone who had her naivete soullessly crushed, you'd think she'd be a bit more practical.  She's appalled that a blatant fortune hunter like Nicholas would dare darken her doorstep.  I mean, really sweetheart?  What about all those other men sniffing around the girls you are helping make matches?  Just because they aren't honest about wanting to marry for money doesn't make them somehow better.  Again, at least Nicholas is honest.  Given her track record to have Belinda still holding on to romantic ideals strained for me.

But they make up for it with their banter.  If this were the 20th century Nicholas and Belinda would have been cast in a Spencer Tracy / Katharine Hepburn picture.  The verbal sparring is top-notch, and once the two strike up a bargain (of sorts) that doesn't put an end to the games.  And what does verbal sparring really mean?  Yeah, foreplay.  Basically Nicholas and Belinda spend a big chunk of this story in a long dance on the way to hitting the sheets.

It's a quick, lively read featuring two spunky characters.  I wasn't madly in love with it, but I did finish the whole affair positively chomping at the bit to get my hands on the next book in the series.  The author does a good job of setting up her future books without being excessively intrusive, and given the brief glimpses of Edie in this story?  May cannot get here soon enough.

Final Grade = B-

TBR Challenge 2012: Luck O' The Irish

The Book: Conor's Way by Laura Lee Guhrke

The Particulars: Historical romance, Harper Monogram, 1996, out of print and going for exorbitant prices used (in paper) - but oh happy day!  It's now available in digital and the author is currently offering it to readers for the ridiculously awesome price of 99 cents. (ETA 2/19/12: Looks like the 99 cent price offer is now kaput).

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?:  Breathless by Laura Lee Guhrke is (to date) my favorite romance novel of all time.  Period.  After I read that book and loved it, I set about finding her backlist.  At the time finding that backlist required nothing short of offering up one of my organs on the black market (I'm kidding, but seriously - it took me a hella long time).  When KristieJ found out I had this book, and it had been languishing in my TBR for years - she started nagging her campaign of terror to get me to finally read the damn thing.  And it only took her about four years.  It's not you Kristie - it's me.  I am not a normal person.

The Review:  For those of you who know nothing about KristieJ - let me give you a quick lesson.  Kristie is a very hero-centric romance reader.  She also is a complete, unrepentant sucker for wounded heroes.  The more screwed up they are, the more she loves them.  Conor's Way is textbook KristieJ cat nip.  Conor Branigan is about as tortured as they come, and wouldn't you know it?  He's Irish.  It's a shock I was able to resist this book for so long.

Since coming to America, Conor has been making a living as a boxer.  It allows him to keep moving, gives him a certain measure of freedom, and glory be - he's actually pretty good at it.  However his luck runs out one night in a backwater Louisiana town.  He's asked to take the fall when the numbers come in and it's discovered the promoter will lose money if Conor wins.  Being...well, Irish - Conor doesn't take the fall and gets the snot kicked out of him by hired goons for his insolence.

Olivia Maitland is desperate to save her family farm.  Her mother dead, her brothers taken by Gettysburg, and her drunken father finally succumbing thanks to a fall from a ladder, it's all she and her three adopted daughters have left.  She's been advertising for a farm hand, but has had no luck since all she has to offer is room and board.  She needs to bring in her peach crop if she has any hope of staying afloat.  The problem is she can't do it all by herself, and the villain of the story is pressuring her to sell.  He wants to build a railroad, and her orchard is inconveniently in the way.  But Olivia cannot bear the thought.  So she prays to God to send her a man.  What she gets?  A beaten-nearly-to-death Conor Branigan lying in the middle of a country road.  She probably should have been more specific with God.....

This is one of those books where it's All About The Hero.  Conor is, simply, one of the more memorable heroes I've read about in a long time.  Also, I'll be honest - I was pretty much sunk the moment Guhrke starts giving us the back-story.  The minute the "Irish stuff" started creeping in - Conor surviving the famine (barely), his Fenian ties, his stint in prison - I was sunk.  Blame it on the four years I spent as an impressionable college undergrad slogging my way through the "high points" of British/Irish relations in the 19th century.  This was good stuff.  Really compelling, and it didn't hurt that Guhrke did her research.

When you have a character like Conor it's easy for the rest of cast to get a little lost.  That does happen somewhat here.  Conor is like a Black Hole Of Swooning Awesomeness.  However, Olivia does hold her own fairly well.  She's firmly on the shelf, pushing thirty and never been kissed.  What potential beaux her drunken father didn't run off, the Civil War dealt with.  After the war, what men returned home took one look around and promptly headed west thinking that surely had to be better.  She's lonely, but she has the girls.  She doesn't really know what she's missing until Conor shows up, and her various female parts kick into overdrive.

The fly in the ointment besides Conor's desire for "freedom," his haunted past, and his belief that he's "no good," is the villain.  The man who wants Olivia's land?  Yeah, the very boxing promoter that Conor ticked off.  And now Conor is sitting on the land that he's been trying to push Olivia off of for four years.  Why has it taken so long?  Well, she keeps saying no, and their shared past together has had him hesitant (until now) to up the ante.

It's hard for me to convey in words how great I thought this story was.  Sometimes with wounded heroes I can lose patience as a reader.  I want to smack them upside the head and holler, "Oh get over it already!"  But it's hard to do that with Conor.  Probably because I know the history.  Also the author gives you just enough horrifying detail to make your skin crawl (also to want to punch the next English Duke in the face that wanders into Romancelandia).  Olivia is a nice enough girl, but she doesn't really fully step up to the plate for me until the second half.  There's nothing ever "wrong" with her, just that being in Conor's orbit can be a tough act to follow.  The three orphan girls that live with Olivia?  Add just enough to the story to keep pricking at Conor's conscience, and slowly transform him into a man that finally has to admit he truly does give a damn.

This is a post Civil War story (1871) set in a the Deep South, and I know some readers who will not touch these with a 50 foot pole.  Guhrke avoids a huge discussion on slavery and the southern "way of life" - but details it just enough to explore Olivia's character.  How she feels isolated, alone, and, to a certain extent, cheated. It also exposes the lies and myths she was raised on.  The moment the slaves leave she knows - the white grown-ups were wrong.  Blacks weren't slaves because they "liked" it.

The way this book ends is very interesting.  There is a bit of grand-standing, a few fireworks, but it's never overblown.  And pushing the buttons behind the curtain?  Let's just say this story has it's own Wizard of Oz.  It's really clever, with subtle manipulations and games being played backstage.

There's a lot to like here.  It's not my favorite of Guhrke's early work (nothing can replace Breathless, and To Dream Again is nearly as splendid), but that's sort of like saying chocolate ice cream is somehow inferior to chocolate cake.  Heck, we're still talking chocolate!  I'm glad I finally read this.  I'm glad Kristie is relentless and kept after me every single year I would see her at RWA ("Have you read Conor's Way yet Wendy?"  "Uh, no."  "Wendy, Wendy, Wendy!").  I didn't want to put it down.  I started to resent the fact that I have to work for a living (damn Greek tycoons, I'm certainly as good as any of those Harlequin Presents heroines!) and couldn't devote a large block of time to doing nothing but inhaling this story.  It's lovely and I want to read it all over again.

Final Grade = A

Sidenote: And lest you think poor KristieJ is done nagging scolding me about books unread in my TBR?  Never fear.  I've still got Jackson Rule lying around here somewhere.....