This first book in Mary Balogh’s new Regency romance Westcott series got off to a good start with a great heroine, a play on a familiar romance plot, and a somewhat inscrutable hero. About halfway through, the story lost steam and fell prey to a trope whose day has past. Once again, a toad of an aristocrat has had the temerity to die and leave his estate in disarray as he failed to disclose a rightful heir to his fortune and rendered his own children […]
One of my favorite romances this year.
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 […]
Corset doffer
This erotic romance set in the Regency period caught my attention as one of the suggestions in the sex-positive romances post comments. While to the uninitiated, “sex-positive” may seem like a given in romance and particularly in erotica, these books were suggested by the more feminist, “rigorous” standards that these books not only contain sex between the leads, but that they don’t slut-shame other women who also have the audacity to have sex. Again, for the uninitiated, this doesn’t seem like a high bar to […]
“It’s horrid to be someone else’s vision of yourself.”
4.5 stars I am very sorry, Sarah MacLean. This is probably my favorite book of yours that I have read so far, but I waited way too long to review it, and now I’m going to have precious little to say about it. Here’s the Goodreads summary, which is as much for my benefit as yours: “A lady does not smoke cheroot. She does not ride astride. She does not fence or attend duels. She does not fire a pistol, and she never gambles at […]