By Eloisa James
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: March 19, 2013
Grace, having accepted that Colin will never lover her as she has dreamed of for many years, gets on with her life. She accepts the proposal of Lord John McIngle, a kind man who cherishes Grace and with whom she believes she can build a contented, fulfilling life. Meanwhile, a wounded Colin is on his way home. He can finally honorably forsake the warrior’s life that has so scarred him, but he believes it is too late for him to confess his feelings to Grace. She deserves a whole man, and Colin sees himself as less than that. Grace can be his only in laudanum-induced dreams.
Seeing Colin wounded and vulnerable stirs Grace to action. Regardless
of the consequences to her reputation, she insists that she will accompany him
to Arbor House. With her mother’s help, Grace sets off with Colin, who has been
heavily sedated by a doctor too free with the laudanum. The result is an inability
in Colin to distinguish dreams from reality and an unwillingness in Grace to
believe that the desire he finally expresses for her is genuine rather than the
result of his confusion. The section ends with major misunderstanding.
This should be
subtitled "The Heartbreak Section." I read it with Kleenex in hand
and resorted to using it with soggy frequency. The sad moments start fairly
early in this section, beginning when Grace defends her decision to marry John
to Lily, the only one who thinks he’s wrong for Grace. I started sniffling with
Grace’s words: “No one will ever love me in the right way, not in that feverish way that men fall in love with you
[Lily]. I’m not that sort of woman!” I cried during Grace’s conversation with
her mother, moved by the relationship James shows us between mother and
daughter. I particularly loved this scene since I am often dismayed by the
disproportionate numbers of bad mothers in romance fiction. By the cliffhanger
ending, which truly is a black moment when it seems impossible that these two
characters who clearly belong together can ever resolve all their problems, I
had a small mountain of tear-soaked tissues cluttering the table beside my
reading chair.
Part Three will
be all the sweeter for the heartbreak of Part Two. Thank goodness—and Eloisa
James—that readers have to wait only a week for the HEA payoff. I highly
recommend With This Kiss, Part Two
with one caveat. Do Not read this
without having read Part One. Remember that a serialized novel is a single
story split into sections. Reading them out of order is like beginning a book
by reading the middle chapters first.
Do sad or
sentimental scenes in books make you cry? What’s the last book that left you
teary?
4 comments:
It's been a while since I've cried while reading a book. I think the last time was a Sarah Mayberry. It might have been MORE THAN ONE NIGHT. It was the scene where Charlie finally accepted that maybe she could go for it with Rhys and then she runs into him on that date with his neighbor. It tore me up - probably cause we heard all her internal dialogue telling herself he would never fall for someone like her and then when she finally let herself believe she gets kicked in the teeth.
Those are the types of scenes that get me. The other one I always remember is the one from SEP's KISS AN ANGEL when Daisy finally breaks and leaves Alex. You see her put up with all his crap through the whole book being this innocent naive believer and then he finally breaks her and it is so sad.
Eloisa was one of the authors who pulled back the veil and introduced me to the world of modern romance novels. Since that awakening I have found other authors that I prefer. But just as while recently visiting my childhood village, I accidentally met an old girl friend, and chatting sparked pleasant memories (for both I hope!), maybe picking up another Eloisa would be good!
I think that stories involving handicapped people tend to drag up tearful emotions for me. At the moment I'm reading Mary Balogh's 'Silent Melody' about a deaf mute. Emily finds that she can communicate in ways that only her childhood amour can really appreciate. Her strange paintings bring an emotional perception of nature onto canvas, and she can sense sound through vibrations in the ground and other solids for example.
I'm only half way through the book but am pretty sure that those tearful emotions will be drawn up soon! LOL
Irish, Linda Howard's Cry No More is hands down the romance that made me cry the most, but I get teary-eyed over sentimental scenes as well as sad ones. Anne Gracie's books nearly always evoke tears at some point. Sometimes, as with Nell's loss in His Captive Lady, they leave me a sodden mess; other times, as with the dance lesson scene in The Accidental Wedding, I shed gentle tears accompanied by sighs. :)With This Kiss evokes both kinds of tears too.
Q, I can't believe you abandoned EJ. You should try With This Kiss. It really is a wonderful story, and the price is right too.
I've certainly shed my share of tears while reading Balogh. Just thinking about Simply Love leaves me teary.
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