When I reviewed Cecilia Grant previously, I mentioned how she seems to delight in turning tropes on their ears. A Woman Entangled is the last book in her Blackshear Family series, and Grant’s target here is perfect. With overt nods to both Pride and Prejudice and Emma, Grant uses the romance of Kate Westbrook and Nick Blackshear to make larger points about vanity, respectability, and expectations. What I find particularly interesting about her romances is that, while her books are in company with other top-quality […]
An utterly ridiculous cover for a book that’s more about probability than rippling abs
I really like the cut of Cecilia Grant’s jib. Her romances read as refreshingly simple, high on practicality and low on histrionics. The leads each have set out to accomplish something, and they find that the other has complementary skills and therefore can help each other achieve their goals. Along the way, their respect for each others’ talents becomes admiration and love. It’s not romantic, in the traditional sense of the genre, with wind-swept hair and rain-soaked gowns and proclamations of love on cliff-tops. But […]
The widow who refused to be seduced.
I picked this book up on impulse after reading alwaysanswerb’s review. The idea of a romance novel that takes a very tropey premise and almost aggressively refuses to wallow in it intrigued me. It ended up being a really good read, even if the author’s refusal to give my id exactly what it wanted frustrated me. The part of me that appreciates good characterization and realistic plotting and development was very happy with this book. Our heroine is Martha Russell, a newly widowed woman who […]
Your brain, not your body, makes you worthy of great love.
4.5 stars In a genre built on, and sustained by, a set of established tropes that the reader instantly recognizes — and even selects for — it isn’t too often that I read a new romance where my main impression is, “Well, that was different!” Tropes work, and standards appear in every genre (though they’re disparaged much more often in romance,) and the skill of the author is revealed by his/her ability to work within their architecture and still craft a memorable, distinct, and competent […]