Write your own comment on this book Please Login or Register to write comments or use smm accounts Log in Log in Log in. Write a comment. Playing for Keeps by R. Lover at Last by J. Ward 2. Love Left Behind by S. Kolee 2. Reed 3. Omega Mine by Aline Hunter 3. Everything He Desires by Thalia Frost 3. Everything He Fears by Thalia Frost 2. Evermore by Alyson Noel 4. The Proposition by Katie Ashley 2. Sweet Persuasion by Maya Banks 3.
Give Me Something by Elizabeth Lee Here's the deal… I learned a long time ago that sometimes you have to use what you've got to make…. A top-secret prototype stealth…. Impostor by Jill Hathaway What if a killer took control of you? Period 8 by Chris Crutcher In this full-length novel from Chris Crutcher, his first since the best-selling Deadline, the…. The Vanishers Heidi Julavits. In the end, our Superwoman gets her friends to help her plan and carry out the rescue of the H, poor thing.
I must confess I don't understand this trend in historic romance. We are reading these kinds of novels in order to vicariously live as women from a different era. And, yet, Laurens has fallen into the trap of so many historic romance authors, that is, having basically contemporary protagonists in a historic setting. So we miss the drama and fun of conflict with macho men.
Heck, the H's in most contemporary romantic suspense books make recent historic romance H's look downright girly. This means we also miss watching both protagonists grow and change as their relationship grows. If you are new to Laurens and like a strong male lead, read Devil's Bride, the first novel in the series about a set of cousins known as the Bar Cynster.
For a particularly hot novel in the series, try the fifth one, A Secret Love. Oh, Stephanie Laurens, I sure am sorry we lost your wonderful characters. Won't you give us a strong male lead and a female who has some weaknesses? And, protagonists who grow and change over the course of the novel. Henrietta has kept the Lady's necklace that she was given at the end of that book in a box ever since. But her sister has need of it and believes she can't use it until Henrietta has had her success so she bullies Henrietta into wearing it.
That night Henrietta, known as the Matchbreaker, for her work in providing young ladies with information about the men pursuing them, gives some bad news to a young woman who has gained the interest of James Glossup.
James needs to marry quickly because of a plot device any good lawyer would have been able to overthrow, at least nowadays. Appraised of this fact Henrietta agrees to help James find a bride. You can guess where this goes. I'm fine with it. I know people complain Laurens' heroes are no longer uber alpha males but I rather like that about them.
There is only so much chest beating I can take in man, even fictionally. I like James. I did especially love the "Well now you'll have to marry me" bit. It was a refreshing change to the usual. The kindle version doesn't have easy access to the family tree at the start of the book and it's been awhile since I have read most of the books so half the time I couldn't remember who was related and how. Though I did appreciate the observation that 8 years had passed and the later comment that the original Cynster ladies are now in their 40's, so 20ish years have passed since Devil's Bride give or take.
There is no way of knowing how old the next generation is but within years fictionally no doubt we'll get Devil's Daughter or title to that effect. And that will be no end amusing I think.
The writing is more in tune with Stephanie Laurens's more traditional regencies naturally, with a degree of "spice" that's prevalent in this genre than her earlier Cynster novels, Devil's Bride, for example.
What didn't hook me to the story wasn't the fact that James is a man exuding a quiet confidence unlike the other alpha heroes of the Cynster family, but that the romance was almost completely overshadowed by the murder, which isn't what one wants to see in a romance novel. It is also unfortunate that the given blurb highly exaggerated the extent of Henrietta's fall. Yes, Henrietta was known amongst the ton as "The Matchbreaker," but that is merely a moniker given by the spurned males of those she helped.
She was more like a relationship investigator, fishing out details to help ladies determined if their intended is marrying them for love, or for some other purpose. That said, Henrietta was far from denying the institution of marriage, mainly waiting for the right man to sweep her off her feet, which, given her logical and relatively sangfroid nature, had frightened many off until James. James is the best friend to Henrietta's brother Simon, and due his grandmother's will decreeing he must marry by a certain date or forfeit his inheritance, in which case he would have to no way to support his lands and people, he has increasingly found Henrietta the object of his affections.
The more time they spend together convinces him of this fact, and so the first half of the book is involved with James's trying to woo Henrietta and her trying to ascertain her own feelings for James.
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