Everything makes so much sense now

A Week to be Wicked, the second book in the Spindle Cove series, was among the first Regency romances I picked up that wasn’t Courtney Milan (obligatory Malin’s Top 100 Romances namedrop, since I found it there!) For whatever reason, it took me some time to get through the rest of the series, until now, where I suspect I have finished with its weakest entries.

A Night to Surrender (3.5 stars) sets up the entire Spindle Cove premise and introduces all of the main players. There is enough catch-up work in the subsequent books that I wasn’t missing any crucial information without this one first, but having read it now I wish I had read the series in order. Even with getting to know subsequent characters in depth in later books, something about seeing them in rough sketch form as they are introduced becomes a lightbulb moment, in a way. Take, for instance, the introduction of the Highwood family, which includes future heroines Minerva and Diana. Each of their books has enough context to make the case that their mother is awful and that their marriages are acts of rebellion against her expectations. We know that well enough from both of their books, but to read how they all first arrive at Spindle Cove and how Mrs. Highwood treats village matriarch (and Night to Surrender heroine Susanna Finch) and her daughters retroactively fleshes out these characters even better and improves their stories even more as  result.

Anyway, this book is partly about Spindle Cove, and partly about Susanna and Bram, or Lord Rycliff. Their story is very much lust at first sight, even though they drive each other nuts: Susanna is trying to maintain the idyllic atmosphere of Spindle Cove that situates it perfectly as a seaside escape for unmarried, “difficult” women; meanwhile, Bram is trying to establish a town militia (on orders) and inject some testosterone back into the place. I liked the tension between them very much, but the whole book had a Battle of the Sexes vibe that occasionally rubbed me the wrong way, particularly as Bram’s behavior toward Susanna — a very, very capable woman — sometimes crossed from chivalry into outright chauvinism and paternalism. Here’s the thing: even today, a lot of people (women included!) scoff or rage at the idea and existence of feminist/women-only spaces, while many of the rest of us can understand the notion of a place that is free from hardcore gender policing. So I certainly don’t expect 19th century Lord Rycliff to automatically understand or accept this idea, but I think if you’re going to set up this very modern, politically-charged idea of a Regency-era women’s utopia, it’s a little disappointing to get this safe, “Aw, sure, we’ll halfway convert our tea shop into a tavern — compromise!” ending without digging a little more into the repercussions of three new swinging dicks coming into town all like “Where the MANLY men at?!” (For the record — there was no evidence of the resident Spindle Cove men feeling oppressed or emasculated; they seem to enjoy the slow pace and friendly atmosphere of the town as much as anyone else.) There were definitely nods toward this new dynamic, and at least one impassioned speech by Susanna, but I guess by the end I was a little unsatisfied by the way that part of the book played out. Otherwise, though, there was plenty to keep me interested, including the aforementioned character sketches. But in particular, there is this completely bonkers sex scene that, if I was reading it right, takes place out in the open against a tree in a reasonably central village park area. I’m sorry for ever doubting you, Tessa Dare — that shit is amazing and you keep on keepin’ on, because either you or your characters or both have major cojones and that kind of a DGAF attitude always resonates with me and makes me laugh.

A Lady by Midnight (3 stars) is about Kate Taylor, woman of uncertain background and Spindle Cove music teacher, and Corporal Thorne, taciturn dude who oversees the militia in Rycliff’s absence. This book… it wasn’t bad, but it just didn’t really do anything for me, personally. Sexy mutes like Thorne are just NOT my brand at all. The most enjoyable part of the story for me was the Lifetime (or… I’ll say E! network, since it has a happy ending) B-plot where Kate learns finally about her origins and family, because that family has rolled into Spindle Cove to claim her and they are just the most delightful and anachronistic bunch of miscreants. I don’t really have a lot else to say about it, to be frank. I read it over a few hours where I desperately needed my brain to be doing something other than what it had been doing, and it was a passable diversion but has not stayed with me much at all otherwise.

With that note, here is my ranking of the Spindle Cove books:

1. A Week to be Wicked (#2) (tie)
2. Any Duchess Will Do (#4) (tie)
3. Beauty and the Blacksmith (#3.5, novella)
4. A Night to Surrender (#1)
5. Once Upon a Winter’s Eve (#1.5, novella)
6. A Lady by Midnight (#3)