3.5 Stars. This book was suggested by a friend who knows her romances, so I was eager to dive in. Unsurprisingly, this historical romp was a complete delight. Willig deftly weaved the main romance from the early 19th century into a modern story featuring a quirky student doing her dissertation on English spies during the Napoleonic era. Eloise Kelly has always loved stories about the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, but she can’t resist a mystery. When she gets the chance to go to […]
The Other Blahter
3.5 stars (very mild spoilers herein) If I could sum this book up, it would be with the appropriately trite “interesting, but not memorable.” The Other Daughter follows Rachel Woodley, and, look, I’m just going to go with the Goodreads description on this one because it’s already pretty succinct: “Raised in a poor yet genteel household, Rachel Woodley is working in France as a governess when she receives news that her mother has died, suddenly. Grief-stricken, she returns to the small town in England where […]
Another Historical Romance, But with Cannonball
Lauren Willig’s Pink Carnation floral espionage series continues with book four of eleven, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, and features droll characters bantering their way through espionage and falling in love. It’s a turn of the 19th century The Thin Man with all of the wit and irreverence one would expect of a Georgian Nick and Nora. As with the first novel, The Secret History Pink Carnation, the adventure is framed by a PhD candidate, Eloise, conducting research on aristocratic spies of the period and […]
Another Historical Romance, But with Scarlet Pimpernel Adjacence
The Secret History Pink Carnation is the first book of eleven (so far) in Lauren Willig’s historical romance series of the same name. Each novel has a framing device featuring a PhD student combing through nineteenth century documents for her thesis research on aristocratic spies and the relation of what she finds as a romantic adventure story. Willig’s writing is light and clever and The Secret History Pink Carnation had a kind of breezy musical comedy tone. It bounced along as a charmingly written and […]
Has anyone ever told you that you haggle divinely? That the simple beauty of your self-interest is enough to bring a man to his knees?
This is the fourth book in the series, and as such, not the best place to start reading. This review will also contain some spoilers for book 3, The Deception of the Emerald Ring, so skip this review if you’re not up to date. Despite being one of the acclaimed beauties of the ton, Miss Mary Alsworthy is facing her third season. The only actual marriage proposals she’s received were from unsuitable candidates, and her attempt to secure a rich husband failed spectacularly when her intended […]
I find that there is very little to excite the attention in a glass of lemonade. It is so uniformly yellow.
When Letitia “Letty” Alsworthy discovers that her older sister, the stunning Mary, is about to elope with her admirer, Lord Geoffrey Pinchingdale-Snipe, she is determined to stop it. Their family is in dire financial straits as it is, the scandal of an elopement would be devastating for them. Unfortunately, Letty finds herself whisked away by the crabby coachman, and in the arms of the besotted Geoffrey before she’s able to stop anything at all. Add to the fact that some of Geoff’s friends conveniently happen […]