I have read this book three(?) times before. I had started a couple new books recently but they just weren’t capturing my attention, and I was in the mood for an old stand-by. Eloisa James is a really hit-or-miss author for me. I don’t think I’ve ever hated something she’s written, but I have DNF’ed a couple. But there are a couple that I just really adore too (like this one), so she’s always worth a shot. This is the third of six books in […]
The Beauty and the Barrister
Lady Clara Fairfax, eldest daughter of the Marquess of Warford and sister to the Earl of Longmore, was raised to marry a duke. The Duke of Clevedon, to be precise, but he ended up falling in love with a dressmaker instead. Not that Clara is lacking in high-born suitors. Twice a week they show up in her mother’s drawing room to ask for her hand in marriage and Clara, well bred lady that she is, politely refuses them. Clara wants to make a difference. She […]
Ending the year on a high note
I did it, you guys. Triple Cannonball! Lady Sophie Talbot is the youngest daughter of a coal miner who it’s rumoured won his Earldom in a card game with the Prince Regent. Sophie was quite happy growing up in a little village in Cumbria, dreaming of marrying the baker’s boy and one day running her own bookshop. Moving to London and becoming part of the ton was never her dream, and unlike her sisters, who seem to clamber to outdo each other with regards to […]
Thank you, Beth Ellen, for gifting me an Elizabeth Hoyt I really enjoyed!
St. Giles in the 1730s was one of the most impoverished areas of London. Widowed Mrs. Temperance Dews runs a children’s home for orphaned and foundling children, with the help of her younger brother, Winter Makepeace, who also tutors the boys until they’re old enough to apprentice out. Caring for nearly 30 children between infancy and nine is hard, thankless work and the siblings have trouble making ends meet. They’re in arrears on their rent and facing eviction at any moment. So when the mysterious […]
A historical romance with a revenge plot
No one ever expected Julian Fortescue to end up becoming a Duke, least of all himself. But after a series of tragic accidents, illnesses and old age kills off most of his male relatives, Julian finds himself as Duke of Denford. As this book begins, he is also actually a wealthy man, having come to a settlement with all of his relatives that means he has the money to support himself in style. This doesn’t escape the notice of his dear mother, who promtly arrives […]
A historical romance with an absolute tool for a hero
3.5 stars On his twenty-first birthday, Damian, Viscount Kendal, drunkenly follows the advice of his friend Robert Townsend and gambles away Beaulieu, the estate he has inherited from his beloved departed mother, then he passes out dead drunk. Unfortunately, Townsend had even more of a drinking and gambling problem than Damian and promptly lost the property to someone else. Damian is forced to return to his father, hanging his head in shame, promising to do whatever it takes to reform and help re-purchase the property. […]