Check another one off the NPR Summer of Love list. Texas Destiny is first in a trilogy about cowboy and rancher brothers living in an as-of-yet uncivilized West Texas. Preciously, they are named Dallas, Houston, and Austin. (“Our parents just named us after wherever they were living at the time,” Houston explains, which doesn’t alleviate my raised eyebrows considering Texas is huge, frequent travel in the Wild West is not something one does for fun in this era, and in the pre-birth control 19th century […]
More like When the Duke was a Terrible Bore. The heroine is good though.
This review was written with the help of Mrs. Julien’s romance review template ™. When the Duke was Wicked is a romance of the “friends to lovers” variety. The hero and heroine have known each other since they were young, as their families are very close. The heroine and the hero’s younger sisters are BFFs. The hero grieves for his dead wife and had determined that he will never love another. The heroine believes she can get the hero to re-join polite society by asking […]
A historical romance with masks
This is the first in a new series by Lorraine Heath, featuring the Hellions of Havisham. The first of these Hellions is Nicholson Lambert, the Duke of Ashebury. He lost his parents in a gruesome train accident and was sent to the country to be raised by the Marquess of Marsden. Along with him were the Earl of Grayling and his twin brother, orphaned in the same accident. Their parents appointed the Marquess of Marsden their guardian, unaware that Marsden was driven pretty much out […]
The con woman and the dissolute Duke
Rosalind “Rose” Sharpe is a con woman, in London looking for her next victims. Posing as as the widow of a man killed in India, her story is that she’s currently low on funds, as her legal counsel are trying to get her inheritance transferred – naturally a complicated and time-consuming process. When she meets the Duke of Avendale, she is immediately drawn to him, knowing that he is rich enough that if she plays her figurative cards correctly, she might never have to swindle […]
Come for the Historical Romance, Stay for the Hostility
Once More, My Darling Rogue by Lorraine Heath
Short Version: NO! Medium Version: My romance spirit guide, Malin, gave me this book and guessed the result based on the blurb. It’s a Victorian romance this – plus a Victorian romance that – resulting in a Victorian romance reading experience of: Long Version: While continuing to be an author I try to avoid actually paying for, Lorraine Heath is solidly B-Minus List writer with some decent books under her belt. She can be dated in her plotting and characters and Once More, My Darling Rogue is no […]
Another Historical Romance, But with a Demi-Tushed Review
For lacklustre romances, I prefer to use my fill-in-the-blank review template; unfortunately my cleverclever formatting didn’t paste properly here and wrestling with HTML to restore it would be an exercise in frustration; instead, the full review can be found here: When the Duke Was Wicked. Links to my other reviews can be found on my list of books by author or The (Shameful) Tally 2014 which includes suggestions and author commentary.