There’s a problem with great secondary characters. Sometimes, they take over. I enjoyed Grace and Jack’s story to be sure, but I kept hoping there’d be more about Thomas and Amelia. Which is good, because coming out in two months rather than next summer.

The Lost Duke opens with Grace Eversleigh traveling with her employee, the Dowager Duchess of Wyndham. I’ve read the companion with an annoying noble employer before, but I have to say the Dowager was on a whole other level of pain in the ass. The fact that Grace not only puts up with it, but lets it slide over her most of the time is both a testament to her character and shows that she clearly doesn’t feel like she has much choice in the world. She has to put up with the Dowager because there’s no other place for her.

Grace and the Dowager are accosted by a highwayman who is, naturally, charming and probably handsome (it’s dark, there’s a mask). Something about this man makes the Dowager sit up and look closer — his bottom features are almost an exact match for her long dead son. And so begins the story.

Jack Audrey (born Cavendish) is indeed the son of the Dowager’s middle son. His father perished at sea, and his mother died shortly after his birth. The reader is let in on this very early in the book so the suspense of that moment is done with. Will he take his place as the Duke or will he allow the current duke, Thomas, to continue as he has so ably?

I liked this book. I’m not surprised by that fact, of course. JQ’s one of my favorite authors and I don’t believe I’ve come across anything by her that I don’t love to pieces. (I even thoroughly enjoyed the last Bridgerton book, though some of my friends felt the series had run its course a few books earlier. Crazy people.) The characterizations were great, though yes, sometimes Jack was just a bit too charming. If only the men in my life had that problem, right?

I think that this book could have easily been an A grade, except I think Amelia and Thomas stole the story in a lot of places. Where I should have focused on Grace and Jack, I was more interested in what could come out of Thomas’s mouth or how Amelia might react. That’s the problem with some characters. You bring them onto the stage but then they kind of direct the action from there.

Another excellent addition to my bookshelf, of course, and I’ve already marked my calendar for September 30 and the next book, Mr. Cavendish, I Presume.

It’s a blog for romance novels — for release dates, fanlistings, and reviews and whatever else I can think of to add to the site. There isn’t a lot there yet, it’s a work in progress but I’ll continue to add entries over the next few days.

RomanceFan.Org

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I bought this. I love everything that Jennifer Crusie has ever written, no matter how long ago it was but I didn’t enjoy Don’t Look Down very much. A little too much action, underdeveloped secondary characters and a plot that just didn’t feel right. Plus a couple that didn’t really inspire me to root for them. The writing was good and I certainly enjoyed portions of it as it’s still lightyears ahead of some of the things I’ve read in the past.

But about a page into Agnes and I was sold. This is a heroine that I thoroughly enjoyed. She’s not perfect, she’s not sweet and special and considerate. This is a woman who has a temper and loses it on occasion. She’s got some rage and the portions where it comes out…that’s just god damn funny to read. Agnes does the things we only dream about. For example, if you came in and found your boyfriend having sex on your table, you’d certainly want to hit him with a frying pain or threaten him with a meat fork, right?

The hero was a little harder to pin down much but it’s refreshing to read about a hero that’s written by a guy. I’m not saying women authors don’t generally hit the nail on the head with their guys, but sometimes there are just things even we can’t explain and that’s when it’s nice to have a guy involved. Shane was definitely a little mysterious but it was a pleasure to watch him to try to keep up with Agnes all week. By the book’s end, he knew her better than anyone else and it’s mostly because he paid attention. Something we can dream about right?

The romance might have felt like it was all about sex to other readers, but I liked when Shane grabbed Agnes’ To Do List so he could help her with it and that he was pretty laid back about her violent tendencies (well, he is a hitman). There were no huge moments, no misunderstandings. With Shane and Agnes, it was all in the details and they were some great details.

The secondary characters were there this time around. Lisa Livia, who is f*cking fabulous. I don’t know if I could handle her as the lead in any book, but she was an outstanding supporting character as were Carpenter, Maria, Garth, Doyle and Joey.

Brenda Fortunato has to be, hands down, the most enjoyable bad guy I’ve read in a romance novel. I’ve liked the villains before. I’ve indentified with them, sympathized and loved to hate them. (Sometimes, I’ve just hated them), but I don’t think I’ve laughed as hard as I have with Brenda. She was a tour de force and just fabulous. I enjoyed every single moment she was on the page. I don’t think this book would have been as marvelous without her.

I liked that the plot didn’t feel like it was wrapped up tightly. At first, there felt like there were a lot of coincidences and catastrophes happening the same week, but when they finally realize that not only are they all connected but they lead back to the same person, I never felt like it was the convienent ending. I could only think Of course! It makes sense now! It felt right and that’s always an accomplishment when you have a complicated plot with many little threads that wraps up tightly, but not too neatly.

A fabulous effort by my favorite author and I look forward to their next project.

I read reviews of this book before I bought it and I decided that I would wait to purchase it until I had extra money because most of the reviews were scathing and I found very few intelligent ones that had anything positive to say. Usually that would turn me off completely but I own every single Anderson novel I could get my hands on so I decided to give it a chance. I ended up having the extra money, I bought it and I read it over the next few days.

I should have spent it on something more worthwhile. It’s no surprise that Amazon is offering this book for $4.10 now. It’s not her strongest and it’s a shame because it really should have been good. I liked the concept but the execution was extremely flawed.

The older brother from Sun Kissed‘s heroine Samantha Harrigan (I just knew as soon as it was clear Sam had older bachelor brothers we’d be seeing them) Clint is the hero here and his counterpart is Loni McEwan, a girl with psychic abilities. She’s been dreaming about Clint her whole life and gets a shocking flash of a little boy she’s sure is his son lost in the woods and only Clint can save him. Of course, Clint is a stand up Catholic boy and doesn’t believe in psychics.

I was looking forward to the idea of having a hero be somewhat religious and unwilling to believe in the heroine at first. I thought it would be refreshing as a lot of authors just don’t touch on religion at all but they went from not believing to believing very fast and before you knew it, they were in the woods searching. Two days later, they’re engaged.

I have no problem with relationships that move fast. I’m a huge fan of Jennifer Crusie and almost of all her couples get together within a month’s time, if not less (two days is also her record I believe) but I guess I just didn’t believe that Clint and Loni were in love. I definitely think he wanted to sleep with her but I just didn’t get the lifetime love thing that fast.

Of course, that’s not the happy ending. Loni, like a lot of Anderson’s female protagonists, run off towards the end and the hero has to go after her. It happened in Phantom Waltz, Blue Skies, My Sunshine and probably one or two more I can’t think of. I believed it in My Sunshine. It’s my second favorite Anderson and in Phantom Waltz, I swallowed it because it made sense. I was tired of it in Blue Skies and by the time this one ran off, I was thinking, Jeez, just let her go. Find someone who doesn’t run when things get tough. Seriously.

More Anderson trademarks that have me weary are the old fashioned fathers like Clint’s father (I can’t remember his name off hand) and interfering families (Loni’s mother, sister and grandmother). It’s almost a repeat of half the books in the Coulter series and I’m hoping these aren’t around for the next ones. It just get olds after a while.

I was so disappointed in this but I hope that the next book from Catherine Anderson will restore my faith in her because she’s one of my favorite authors and I suppose everyone has a misstep. The book was still well written and there were pieces I liked like Clint’s relationship with his new found son so I didn’t hate it, hence the C+ grade. A book with a promising premise but a terribly flawed execution.

I love and adore Jennifer Crusie and I’m usually in line to purchase her books on the day they come out but I waited to buy this and I’ll tell you why: I’m not a fan of books that are written by more than one author and I’m not a huge fan of anthologies. I had never read anything by Anne Stuart and I had never even heard of Eileen Dreyer, so I decided to wait a while until I had some extra money.

I’m sorry that I was so quick to judge — this is a very fun and fast-paced novel, one of the hallmarks of a fabulous Crusie novel. At first, I wasn’t able to tell which author wrote each character but as soon as Mare’s story got going, I could pick out Crusie’s voice very easily. That didn’t mean that Lizzie and Dee were not as fun or well-written, but after reading everything I can get my hands Crusie-wise and then reading it again, it was easy to pick out her contributions.

The reason that I gave it an A- is simply that I felt in some ways the stories were just a little too fast. It takes place over a weekend and usually, I can overlook that sort of thing. A great number of romance novels take place over a short amount of time and the mark of a really fabulous author is to make you forget that everything you just read happened in a matter of days. I wasn’t able to get there. Mare’s story was easier to believe because her true love was a man from her past and I could believe her story having a resolution in about forty-eight hours.

But it was hard to buy Lizzie and Elric and Dee and Danny in particular. I just didn’t feel it. I could feel they were very attracted to each other but I just couldn’t see their resolution as neatly. The authors were trying to submerge you into this entire world and I just never quite had a handle on it.

In the end though, it was well-written, the characters were fun and easy to read and I would not have minded longer books (or even a trilogy with a different book from a different author). Even if some aspects of the book were not exactly what I wanted, I still enjoyed it thoroughly and now I have two new authors to track down.

I just want to preface this by saying that I enjoy Samantha James. I don’t worship her, I don’t hate her, I find her books generally entertaining and readable. I don’t rush out and buy her books when they come out but if I’ve got the extra money to spend and I see something new (or a reprint I didn’t already own) I always pick it up.

My Lord Conqueror is a book I’ve read a few times. It’s a run of the mill Norman invasion where the hero (Merrick) is a Norman lord who’s conquered some Saxon stronghold, and in this case, the heroine (Alana) is the bastard daughter of the keep’s former lord. It has all the earmarks of this type of romance — an unwilling heroine and a patient hero. She has visions and from the beginning of the book, she has a vision of Merrick standing over her with a sword as if he’s going to kill her. Since her visions usually come true, obviously this causes some anxiety on her part.

The story is tried and true, but no less fun to read. There’s a lot going on aside from the main romance (Alana’s legitimate half-sister, a few odd murders and occurences, a very minor secondary romance and more invasions) but I never felt like they distracted me from the main romance, which despite the predictibility, still flowed and seemed believable. By the inevitable declaring of one’s love, I did feel that the characters had earned that and felt it, which is nice.

For the first read through, I enjoyed the book. I didn’t love it, I didn’t hate it but I didn’t feel like I’d wasted my time reading it, which I think really determines a book’s value. It’s a book I put on my shelf and take down time to time when I’m in the mood to read a romance but I don’t want to have to concentrate on something I haven’t read yet. However, by the third read through, a few things do tend to jump out. Merrick calls Alana ‘Saxon’ no less than six times in the span of two pages and while you don’t notice it right away, once you notice it, you can’t stop. Which means I’ve probably ruined it for a few people, lol.

It’s not on the level of a Nora Roberts or a Jennifer Crusie read for me, but it’s also not a book I shoved back on my shelf to forget it (Catherine Coulter or Johanna Lindsey.) I do recommend it