Bonus Review: Three Little Words

Three Little Words

By Susan Mallery

Publisher: Harlequin HQN

Release Date: June 30, 2013

Isabel Beebe has returned temporarily to her hometown of Fool’s Gold, California. She has two goals for her stay: (1) to manage Paper Moon Wedding Gowns, the family business begun by her grandmother, while her parents are on a world tour and update it for them to sell upon her return; (2) to avoid contact with Ford Hendrix. She’s making progress toward the first goal, but the second one became impossible since she’s just learned that her parents rented their garage apartment to Ford. Since Isabel is living in her parents’ house, there is no way she can continue to avoid him.

Isabel’s older sister, Maeve, was engaged to Ford, but, after cheating on him with one of his best friends, she dumped him for that friend days before she and Ford were to be married. A broken-hearted Ford joined the Navy, and Fool’s Gold has seen little of him in the fourteen years since then. Isabel, who was fourteen at the time, was in love with Ford in the way only a young teen can be in love. She wrote to him for ten years, sharing bits of her life, refusing to be discouraged at the lack of replies.  She only stopped writing when the man she later married was about to propose. When she’s being honest with herself, she admits that she will always have a special feeling for Ford.

Ford Hendrix knew the time had come for him to find something to do with his life other than continue with the Navy SEALs, so when his friend Justice Garrett proposes they join with a couple of other friends to set up a security training facility in Fool’s Gold, Ford decides he’s ready to return permanently. He’s enjoying spending time with his family, but his mother’s hovering is driving him nuts, as is her determination to see him and his brother Kent as happily married as the rest of their siblings. Ford hopes that renting an apartment will give him some space from his mother and sisters. When even that doesn’t discourage his mom, he persuades Isabel to be his faux girlfriend in order to stop his mother’s matchmaking efforts. With Isabel set to return to New York and open a shop there, Ford thinks she’s perfect for the role. He’s about to find out how perfect she truly is for him. But Ford doesn’t do forever, and it’s clear to him that whether she’s in New York or Fool’s Gold, Isabel is a forever girl.

I love these characters! Isabel is sweet and funny and confused and vulnerable, particularly after her divorce. Yet she has an essential optimism that I found endearing. Ford is a charmer with a terrific sense of humor and an understanding heart, an irresistible combination.  I cheer Mallory for giving readers a warrior hero with his own demons to fight who is neither a loner nor an alpha butting heads to show he’s in charge. The chemistry between them is great, but equally important Isabel and Ford like one another. And their history provides a strong link. Ford will always be the man in whom the younger Isabel confided, and Isabel will always be the young girl whose letters kept him sane in a dark and dangerous time. This is the foundation other feelings build on. I really like the two of them together and believe they can build a life together. The secondary romance between Consuelo and Kent is also wonderful, although their relationship is very different from Isabel and Ford’s. Consuelo and Kent are such an unexpected match, and yet they are great together. As always, part of the pleasure of a Fool’s Gold book is the town itself and visits with old friends.

My one complaint is that the hero who thinks he can’t love and must run away has been overdone.  I’m ready to see some variety in the conflict that postpones the HEA. Indications are that the next set within the series will feature the football players who are moving their business to Fool’s Gold. I’m eager to meet them and their heroines, but I hope to see the pattern of relationships mixed up a bit.

Do you think books in a long-running series can become too similar? What’s the difference between the comfortably familiar and the disturbingly repetitious for you?

Bonus Review: Princess Charming

Princess Charming

By Beth Pattillo

Publisher: Belle Books

Release Date: May 24, 2013

(Reissue, originally published 2003)

Lucy Charming is a Cinderella complete with a dead father, an evil stepmother, wicked stepsisters (although one is somewhat reluctantly wicked), and time in the kitchen. The daughter of a duke, Lucy is turned into a servant by her abusive stepmother. It turns out that Lucy doesn’t mind too much since she is far more interested in undercover political activism, specifically universal suffrage, than she is in ballrooms and moonlight dances with handsome princes.

Nicholas St. Germain is a prince, the crown prince of Santadorra. But Nick is no more interested in being a prince than Lucy is in ballrooms. In fact, he is estranged from his father and has made a life in England, refusing to return to Santadorra. When he was twelve, he was forced to flee with his mother and sister when revolutionaries attacked. His mother and sister were killed, and Nick has never been able to forgive himself for failing to save them or for surviving. He also holds his father responsible for their deaths. Because of this background, Nick has developed a savior complex. He is compelled to rescue people.

Lucy and Nick meet when she is trying to evade two men who are following her with evil intent and enters the garden where Nick is doing gardener duty to pay off a lost wager. A comedy of error ensues with mistaken identity (She thinks he’s a gardener; he thinks she’s a maid), botched rescues, and a wager with much higher stakes. Nick’s friend, Lord Crispin Wellstone, takes on the role of a benevolent godfather with good intentions, useful contacts, but no magical powers.

The summary makes this book sound like a frothy romp that is an entertaining revision of a fairy tale, and it does begin that way. The combination of the familiar and the strikingly different has a strong appeal; the humor is rich and seems an appropriate prelude to love overcoming obstacles. But the tone changes when Nick and Lucy’s identities are revealed. There’s nothing light or amusing about troops set on demonstrators or the grittiness of prison. What I thought was a witty spoof with two lovers headed for an HEA after the requisite sparring becomes social commentary and psychologically disturbing obsession. Color me confused and frustrated.

I have read and enjoyed other books by Beth Pattillo, and I know she is a writer who can both entertain and provoke thoughtful examination of complex issues. Unfortunately, the mix in Princess Charming did not work for me.

Dozens of romance authors have written their own versions of Cinderella. Why do you think this fairy tale continues to have such wide appeal?

Bonus Review: Hold on My Heart

Hold on My Heart

By Tracy Brogan

Publisher: 
Montlake Romance

Release Date: June 25, 2013

With a single click of a mouse, Libby Hamilton ended her career as a corporate events planner. She hit “Reply All” in error and went public with her emphatically negative opinion of her boss. Not only was she fired but the story of her error has made the rounds, making remote the likelihood of her finding another job in Chicago. Her boyfriend of almost four years is eager to keep his distance, physically and emotionally, and Libby has moved back to the family home in Monroe, Illinois. Her father, a retired history teacher with a personal history of unsuccessful projects, has just bought a historic one-room schoolhouse that he plans to turn into an old-fashioned ice-cream parlor, and her long-suffering mother, also a teacher, is dealing with a hypercritical mother-in-law. Older sister Ginny, who teaches at the local high school, is married and pregnant with her first child, and free-spirited younger sister Marti, a college senior, has just announced her engagement to a jousting instructor with a dragon tattoo. Jobless and suddenly single, Libby is drafted into helping them all, but most of her time is taken up with her father’s project, a project that is made more interesting by the presence of a hunky builder.

Tom Murphy, a builder and restoration specialist, is hired by Peter Hamilton to restore the old school building. A taciturn widower with a teenage daughter, Tom is still struggling with grief and guilt a year after his wife’s death and trying to persuade his daughter that she belongs with him rather than with her maternal grandparents with whom she’s been living since her mother’s death. He is thankful for the job that promises work through the winter, but he’s not interested in the complications that Libby Hamilton promises. She talks too much, leads him to revealing more than he’s comfortable with, and stirs feelings that leave him restless and guilty.

The popularity of romantic comedy leads to the term being too loosely applied at times. At its best, romantic comedy is a genre in which the protagonists, realistically drawn adults who are equals in mind, body, and spirit (although not always in social status) meet, engage in quips and ripostes, encounter obstacles (often their own confusion), and ultimately understand that the other is the right person for him/her. Sexual tension may be prevalent, but the relationship is not about sex; it’s about resolving conflicts and moving to a happy union of the lovers. Hold on Your Heart meets these criteria. Hold on My Heart is a romantic comedy with humor, heart, and characters quirky or poignant.

It’s easy to root for Libby and Tom, both engaging, credible characters. Their romance is an appealing blend of sweet and heat with some laugh-out-loud moments and some heart-touching ones. Libby’s family, individually and collectively, are endearing, amusing scene-stealers. Some of my favorite scenes were those involving family interactions. A bridal shop scene with all the Hamilton women is as memorable for its believable sibling interactions ass for its comedy.

Brogan’s Crazy Little Thing is a RITA finalist in the Best First Book category, and I think Hold on My Heart is even better. If you like romance that evokes laughter and tears and gives you characters you can believe in, I highly recommend this book.

Libby Hamilton’s family is a bit unusual in romance fiction in that it is an “intact family,” that is both parents are still living and still married to one another and there are no estrangements within the family. Can you think of other families in romance novels to whom this description also applies?

Bonus Reviews: Two Texas Towns

Anything But Sweet

By Candis Terry

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: June 25, 2013

Excitement in Sweet, Texas, is contagious. The town is in dire need of some sprucing up, and the news that they have been chosen by the cable makeover show My New Town has everyone smiling and preparing to welcome the show’s cast and crew to Sweet. Reno Wilder, ex-Marine, cowboy, and hardware store owner, is the only holdout. He likes his town just fine the way it is—worn and comfortable. Reno has already had more change in his life than his heart can bear. First, his oldest brother Jared was killed in Afghanistan, then his beloved father died, and finally his fiancée. He is opposed to the changes Charli Brooks and her crew will make and adamant that his hardware store will not be one of their projects.

The daughter of a Marine general, Charli Brooks grew up constantly moving. Her mother died when Charli was eight, and her father maintained his emotional distance even during the rare times when he was physically present. Charli’s dream has always been to find a place to belong and a community to offer the human connection lacking in her life. The last thing she expected to do as an adult was to continue her nomadic lifestyle, but as designer and star of My New Town, she’s around just long enough to fall in love with a town before she has to move on to the next one. Sweet is just the kind of town she likes best, one that leaves her wishing she were part of the close-knit community where everyone knows the name and history of all the citizens.

Since Sweet has no hotel, the personnel of the TV show are offered hospitality by private homeowners. Jana Wilder, mother of the Wilder boys, offers Charli an apartment over the barn of her oldest surviving son, Reno. Charli loves her quarters, even if Reno is considerably less hospitable than his mother. As of her proximity in the apartment were not enough, Charli soon talks Reno into painting a mural for the senior center, part of her makeover plan. She may be charming all of Sweet including his two younger brothers who can’t stop talking about how hot she is, but Reno is determined to keep the chatty beauty at arm’s length. Not even his sternest resolve proves strong enough to continue to resist the curiosity, humor, and generous heart of the effervescent Charli. The inhabitants of Sweet couldn’t be more delighted to see this unlikely pair turn out to be the perfect match.

Terry gives her readers another small town that merits regular visits in this new series. Sweet, Texas is warm, welcoming, and filled with quirky characters. Charli is a charmer with enough vulnerability to capture the reader’s heart, and Reno is a wounded cowboy hero worthy of hot hero status. The details of the reality show’s production add interest to the story. I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to Sweet and am eager to return for the stories of the other Wilder brothers—firefighter Jackson, veterinarian Jesse, and Marine Jake.

All Out of Love

By Lori Wilde

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: June 25, 2013

Lace Beddingfield was a plump, 14-year-old stutterer when the letter she wrote to Cupid confessing her love for and fantasies about the quarterback of the football team, Pierce Hollister, became the most read part of her high school newspaper, thanks to Lace’s cousin Mary Alice, editor and recently dumped girlfriend of the hot jock.  The experience left Lace feeling humiliated and betrayed by her cousin and by the mockery of life-long friends. It was those feelings that led to her skinny, wild child period, but at 26, with a Ph.D. in plant science, Lace is content with her size fourteen body and happy with her job as director of the botanical gardens of her hometown. She’s not happy with the news her Aunt Carol Ann brings to the gardens one July morning: Pierce Hollister has come home to Cupid, Texas.

Pierce Hollister had gone from Cupid’s Millie Greenwood High School to the University of Texas to the NFL, a golden boy every step of the way until a linebacker’s hit in the Super Bowl lost the game for the Dallas Cowboys and left their quarterback with a broken leg and sidelined on the disabled list indefinitely. At thirty, Pierce is no longer a boy, and despite all the pep talks he gives himself, his leg injury may mean that he’s no longer football gold either. His father’s illness brings him back to Cupid, but his injury could mean his stay is not the temporary one he plans.

Pierce finds the grownup Lace a tempting armful, and he’s convinced he can win her over with the charm that has won him more women than he can count, but Lace is determined to avoid Pierce and uses her wit and tart words to check him at every turn. However, when a city employee’s theft of half a million dollars from Cupid’s coffers puts the botanical gardens in jeopardy, Lace is forced to ask for Pierce’s help in a fundraiser to save the gardens. Pierce’s price for his help is time with Lace, and it doesn’t take long before two hearts are in greater danger of being lost than are the gardens.  

Wilde’s second book in her Cupid, Texas series features a sympathetic heroine and a hero with more heart than his playboy reputation and celebrity-inflated ego suggests. Readers who enjoyed Wilde’s earlier series and Love at First Sight, the first Cupid book, will doubtless enjoy this one as well. New readers may find themselves wishing for less time spent with characters tangling the sheets and more time developing the romance. I rank this one with books I label “promising start, potential unrealized.”

Texas is a popular choice for small-town romances. What's your favorite Texas-set series?

Bonus Review: Wind Chime Point

Wind Chime Point

By Sherryl Woods

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Gabriella is the Castle sister most driven to win the approval of her emotionally distant father. She chose her career with this in mind, and she has devoted herself to being the best in her job as a public relations executive for a biomedical research company. But an unplanned pregnancy leaves her without a job and her boyfriend’s response to her pregnancy is to forget their five-year relationship and remove himself from the picture as rapidly as possible. What’s a girl to do when her perfect life lies in pieces and she has major decisions to make? If you are a Castle, the answer is to leave her Raleigh, north Carolina apartment and head to the Outer Banks and Sand Castle Bay where her grandmother, Cora Jane Castle, will supply hugs, food, and advice and her sisters Emily and Samantha will be her support system while they plan Emily’s wedding.

Wade Johnson, cabinet maker and wood carver extraordinaire, fell for Gabi at first sight, and even a visibly pregnant Gabi fails to dim his interest. Gabi is not interested in a new relationship or in being the latest Castle subject to her grandmother’s matchmaking. But Cora Jane is an irresistible force, and Wade’s good looks and gallantry prove irresistible too. The HEA is in sight, but there are obstacles that must be overcome first. Gabi wants the best for her baby and that may mean adoption. Wade still has unresolved issues related to the wife and unborn child who died in an accident, and he has a bossy sister bent on protecting her brother.

Wind Chime Point is the second book in Sherryl Woods’s Ocean Breeze series. Once again the author gives her readers likeable characters in a charming setting with a sweet love story as the main course and a side dish of family dynamics.  Fans of the first book in the series, Sand Castle Bay, will be pleased to see Emily and Boone in the midst of wedding plans, and a secondary plot involving a deserving teen befriended by Wade and the Castle family adds interest. This is a gentle, agreeable read that contains few surprises.

I was surprised—and not happily--by the speed with which Gabi and Wade begin having quite intimate conversations. The two are mere acquaintances when Gabi returns to the island, and yet he asks about the father of her child immediately.  And she gives him a detailed answer. The conversation at that stage felt off to me, and it seemed out of character for Wade, an extraordinarily sensitive man. Except for that scene and Wade’s sister whom I found irritating, I liked this story well enough to look forward to Sea Glass Island, Samantha’s book, which releases on May 28. It promises a more complicated hero and the resolution to some sibling tension between Emily and Samantha.

Two of Sherryl Woods’s most popular series are her Sweet Magnolia novels (ten books) and her Chesapeake Shores stories (nine books). The Ocean Breeze books evidently will end with the third book. Do you prefer short series—trilogies and quartets—or are you happy to see a favorite series run to a dozen books or more?

Bonus Review: The Apple Orchard

The Apple Orchard

By Susan Wiggs

Publisher: Harlequin Mira

Release Date: April 30, 2013

Tess Delaney, a provenance specialist for a prestigious auction house, finds her career rewarding and often exciting, but her personal life is less satisfying. Raised by her beloved Irish grandmother and her mother whose own career required constant travel, Tess satisfies her need for connection by collecting objects that have a history, often objects with a family story. With her grandmother dead and her mother as distant as ever, Tess depends upon a small core of friends in lieu of family, but her best friend’s recent engagement signals that those relationships are changing. 

Just at the moment when she is feeling most alone, Tess learns that the grandfather she never knew is in critical condition in a hospital in Sonoma County, California, and that he has named Tess as heir to half of Bella Vista, a hundred-acre working orchard with a house and outbuildings in a town called Archangel. Her co-heir is Isabel Johansen, a half-sister Tess never dreamed she had.

Dominic Rossi, banker, vintner, devoted father of two with his ex-wife, and executor of the estate of his friend and neighbor Magnus Johansen, is the one who finds Tess and gives her the news for which she is totally unprepared. When the stress of Dominic’s news precipitates a medical emergency that leaves Tess with a diagnosis (generalized anxiety disorder) and treatment (a radical change in lifestyle), she allows herself to be persuaded to fly to Archangel with Dominic. Bella Vista is a world far removed from anything Tess has ever known. Feeling an unexpected tie to her vulnerable sister and to the complicated and label-defying Dominic, Tess also finds the Archangel community endlessly fascinating and appealing. Soon she is using the skills that have ensured her professional success to uncover generations of secrets and the missing treasure that may save this world she has come to love.   

I started reading the books of Susan Wiggs when she was writing historical romance, and she remained an autobuy author for me when she moved to novels that are a hybrid of women’s fiction and contemporary romance. One of the things I have always loved about Wiggs’s books is her ability to weave together story strands, each forming its own pattern and yet integrated into a rich and complex whole. The Apple Orchard is a splendid example of this gift, taking the reader back to Magnus Johansen’s past in occupied Denmark during World War II, weaving in the story of one of Tess’s clients, encompassing a forbidden love story in the next generation, and adding the complications of Tess and Dominic. The story is compelling, the characters are vibrant and appealing, and the world of the novel is one in which I wanted to linger. My favorite books engage both my brain and my heart, and this one qualifies. I highly recommend it.

Food always figures prominently in the contemporary novels of Susan Wiggs. I confess Wiggs persuades me I can smell and taste the food her characters prepare. I’m not much of a cook, but I have tried some of the recipes she includes. Do you like to see recipes included in novels? Have you ever tested any in your own kitchen?

Bonus Review: While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey

By Wendy Wax

Publisher: Berkeley Trade

Release Date: April 2, 2013

Edward Parker, a British transplant proud of the family tradition of service, is the owner of Private Butler, a personal concierge company that six months earlier was selected to supply concierge service for the historic Alexander, “a beautifully renovated Beaux Arts and Renaissance Revival-styled apartment building in the center of Midtown Atlanta.” Edward, dapper and discrete, is the perfect concierge. To create a greater sense of community among those who live in the Alexander, Edward comes up with the idea of weekly viewings of the first two seasons of Downton Abbey on the big screen television in the clubroom, complete with popcorn and wine and “English-themed nibbles” to follow the screening.

Neither Brooke Mackenzie, Samantha Davis, nor Claire Walker is enthusiastic about watching a stuffy British TV show with a bunch of strangers, but each finds herself attending the viewing. As they watch Downton Abbey and become engaged with the show’s characters, they become friends. Their lives intersect with one another’s and with Edward’s in surprising ways.

Brooke is a divorcee with two young daughters, ages seven and five, and an ex-husband who discarded her for an Atlanta socialite who was a better advertisement for his skills as a plastic surgeon and more in tune with his ambitions. Brooke is lonely and dissatisfied with herself and her life. Years of placating her husband have turned her into a doormat, and she’s not sure how to change. Her friendship with Samantha and Claire brings people into her life who care about her, and Edward’s recognition of skills that Brooke has developed as a homemaker and mother paves the way for a career and possibilities she never dared dream.

Samantha married into Atlanta royalty and for twenty-five years she has been trying to deserve the man who saved her and her two younger siblings when their father’s greed and dishonesty destroyed the life they had known. She didn’t love Jonathan Davis when she married him, but she has fallen in love with him over the years. However, she’s so caught up in maintaining the perfect image and feeling grateful that she cannot allow herself to be honest and express her real feelings. When her perfect life falls to pieces, it is her new friends who help her discover a strength and determination she never knew she possessed.

Claire is facing a new life. Divorced for sixteen years after a brief marriage that she knew was a mistake from the beginning, she has worked, cared for aging parents, and nurtured her daughter in suburban Atlanta. Now she has a new apartment and a new life. Her daughter is a freshman at Northwestern University, and Claire, who has written two moderately successful historical romance novels, has enough money to spend a year working fulltime on her breakout novel. The only problem is she is suffering from an advanced case of writer’s block—until she discovers the seeds of a different story in the lives of her new friends.

While We Were Watching Downton Abbey is the story of the unlikely friendship that develops among these characters. The three women are at different stages in their lives, they are from different backgrounds, and they appear to have little in common other than their address. But over three months, they come to trust one another and to open themselves to the joys and the challenges of friendship. While there are some romantic elements in the story, the focus is on the power of friendship to comfort and empower.

Downton Abbey fans will doubtless enjoy the references to characters from the series, and they may see some parallels between Yorkshire estate and village of Downton Abbey and the Alexander where characters from the wealthy elite such as the Samantha and Jonathan Davis are brought into contact with their social inferiors. They may also make connections between Edward and Carson, Samantha and Lady Mary, and perhaps Violet and Samantha’s mother-in-law, but it is not necessary to be familiar with the show to appreciate the novel.

Wax excels at using humor, bits of local color, and multiple, complex female protagonists, and she uses all of these to good effect here. I found Brooke, Samantha, and Claire interesting and likeable, and Edward, a George Clooney lookalike with a British accent and a big heart, is the stuff of dreams. He made me want to move to the Alexander immediately.  I also enjoyed the references to familiar Atlanta spots.

I also loved, as I typically do with Wax’s novels, the memorable lines that say a great deal in a sentence or two. These are among my favorites:

Of the effects of Brooke’s marriage to the jerk:

By then her imperfections were the only thing in their marriage that she still recognized.

Of Claire’s feeling caught between who she once was and who she is becoming:

She felt like a disembodied spirit with one foot in the old life and one in the new but belonging in neither.

Of Samantha’s saying yes to her savior prince:

There was plenty of precedent for prince-marrying in the fairy-tale world. Sleeping Beauty had not ignored the prince’s kiss in favor of a few more years of shut-eye. Cinderella never considered refusing to try on the glass slipper. And Snow White didn’t bat an eyelash at moving in with those seven little men

If you like women’s fiction that makes you smile, warms your heart, and reminds you why friendship matters, this book is definitely one you will enjoy.

Bonus Review: A Most Scandalous Proposal

 A Most Scandalous Proposal

By Ashlyn Macnamara
Publisher: Ballantine

Release Date: February 26, 2013

Summary from publisher:

After watching her beloved sister, Sophia, pine over the ton’s golden boy for years, Miss Julia St. Claire has foresworn love and put herself firmly on the shelf. Unfortunately, her social-climbing mother and debt-ridden father have other ideas, and jump at the chance to marry Julia off to the newly named Earl of Clivesden . . . the man of Sophia’s dreams.

Since resigning his cavalry commission, Benedict Revelstoke has spent his time in London avoiding the marriage mart. But when he discovers that the Earl of Clivesden has his sights set on Julia, Benedict tries to protect his childhood best friend from the man’s advances—only to discover that more than friendship is driving his desire to defend her. He surprises them both with the force of his feelings, but when Julia refuses him, and her father announces her betrothal, Benedict fears he’s lost her forever—until Julia approaches him with a shocking scheme that will ruin her for all respectable society and lead them into an exquisite world of forbidden pleasures.

My Response:

Ashlyn Macnamara has acknowledged the influence of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility on her debut novel. However, it is an overstatement to view A Most Scandalous Proposal as a more sensual adaptation of Sense and Sensibility. There are marked differences in characters and plots, but the parallels are strong enough for Austen’s influence to be discernible.

Two Sisters

Sense—Julia St. Claire

Like Austen’s Elinor Dashwood, Julia, the younger of the two St. Claire sisters, is the practical sister. Although she sometimes grows impatient with her sister’s excessively romantic reactions, she loves her sister and does all she can to aid her and to comfort her when things go awry. Julia’s own responses are more measured and restrained than her sister’s. Both young women have turned down several proposals, but their reasons for doing so are different. Julia wants a “civilized, sensible union” without the excesses of romantic love. But Julia also fears losing herself if she is overwhelmed by love. Another characteristic that Julia shares with Elinor is that she increases her suffering by keeping the things that trouble her to herself . She is also like Austen’s Elinor in that her feelings remain private with none of the emotional displays to which her sister is prone.

Sensibility—Sophia St. Claire

Sophia, like Austen’s Marianne Dashwood, moves from intense emotional highs to deep emotional lows. She has been in love with William Ludlowe, who becomes Earl of Clivesden, from the moment he “rescues” her during her first season (shades of Willoughby and Marianne). For five years, she has been elated when he noticed her and devastated when he ignored her. He is the reason she has turned down other eligible gentlemen. Austen has Elinor describe Marianne as moving from conjecture to belief, from wish to hope to expectation with no pause to consider the grounds for such movement. The same thing could be said of Sophia. So tender are Sophia’s sensibilities that she swoons when she’s confronted with a difficult moment—twice in one evening. She is incapable of hiding her feelings. Julia wonders how Ludlowe remains unaware of Sophia’s love for him:

How could he miss Sophia’s obvious affection for him? She took no pains to hide it. She might as well lay her beating heart in his lap. . . .

The Worthy Hero—Benedict Revelstoke

Benedict is a childhood friend of Julia’s and has long been in love with her. Their relationship owes nothing to that of Elinor Dashwood and Edward Ferrars in Sense and Sensibility. A hero who duplicated Edward too closely would likely have 21^st-century romance readers agreeing with Marianne that the character lacked the proper “fire” to be a hero. Unlike Edward, Benedict is handsome, independent, and well-spoken, and he possesses more than sufficient fire to satisfy contemporary tastes. But he does share with Edward youth, gravitas, and “solid worth.” 

The Older Hero—Rufus Frederick Shelburne, Earl of Highgate

Highgate may be the character in A Most Scandalous Proposal who owes the most to Sense and Sensibility. Like Colonel Brandon, he is older. In fact, at forty, he’s a few years older than Colonel Brandon, who was thirty-five. Also, like Austen’s character, Highgate is a man of honor, substance, and decisiveness. He has a history with the villain involving a woman they both loved. Colonel Brandon shared Marianne’s passion for music, but Highgate and Sophia bond over books, Jane Austen’s books, to be precise. Highgate is fully cognizant of the flaws in Ludlowe’s character and reveals them at the right moment, another detail he shares with Colonel Brandon. He falls in love with Sophia, but is willing to stand aside if it is in her best interest. I rarely envision an actor as a character when I read, but I could see Alan Rickman as Highgate, Colonel Brandon with a PG rating.

The Villain of the Piece-- William Ludlowe, Earl of Clivesden

Like Austen’s Willoughby, Ludlowe/Clivesden is superficially a maiden’s perfect hero. He is handsome, charming, and titled. Few know that he is also a bully, a womanizer, and a card shark who is debauched at the core. Macnamara makes her villain a more deeply flawed character than Austen’s Willoughby. After all, Willoughby eventually acknowledges that he has true feelings for Marianne and he ends a better man for having loved her. Ludlowe/Clivesden willfully humiliates Sophia, and he courts her sister, refusing to accept Julia’s rejection and even using her father to force Julia into becoming betrothed to him. There is no redemption for him at story’s end.

To reiterate, A Most Scandalous Proposal is not truly a “retelling” of Sense and Sensibility, but it does owe a significant debt to Austen’s first novel. Macnamara’s characters may well evoke the shadows of Austen’s in the eyes of readers familiar with Sense and Sensibility.

I have reservations about some of the Austen-inspired work that has filled bookstores in recent years. This is my favorite kind of Austen derivative, a novel that borrows from Austen, without mutilation, to create a story that is clearly the author’s own. I enjoyed this book. Fans of Sense and Sensibility may find a particular pleasure in it, but I don’t think it’s necessary to know the Austen novel that inspired it to find this book a good read.


Are you a Jane Austen fan? If so, what’s your favorite Austen-inspired novel?

Bonus Review: The Long Way Home

The Long Way Home

By Mariah Stewart

Publisher: 

Random House/Ballantine

Release Date: January 29, 2013

 Ellis Chapman has come to the small town of St. Dennis, Maryland, to try to put her life back together. Reared as the daughter of wealthy investment banker Clifford Chapman, accustomed to a privileged life of designer clothes, prestigious private schools, and first class accommodations on her world travels, she has nothing left—not even her name. When her father and fiancé were revealed for the thieves they were, Ellis lost her home, her car, her jewelry, and her bank accounts. Even though the FBI and SEC found her innocent of any involvement in her father’s illegal dealings, since even her salary as public relations director for CC Investments came from ill-gotten gains, she was allowed to keep nothing from her former life. For the past year, she has lived in the Boston townhouse of her best friend, Carly Summit, the only friend who stood by her when the scandal broke.

But the time has arrived to get on with her life, and the first step is to sell the house in St. Dennis that has been left to her by her mother. Because Lynley Sebastian bought the house and set up bank accounts to pay taxes, upkeep, and utilities out of money she earned as one of the first supermodels, it has not been confiscated with the Chapman assets. All Ellis has to do is meet the terms of her mother’s will by living in the house for six months, and then she’ll be free to take the money from the sale and construct a new life for herself. Only the family lawyer, Jesse Enright, knows that she is Ellis Chapman. To distance herself from the scandal and its devastating effects, she has chosen to be Ellie Ryder in St. Dennis, a New Yorker who bought the house from Lynley Sebastian’s estate for the express purpose of flipping it. Ellie expects her contact with the citizens of St. Dennis to be minimal, and so she feels no guilt about deceiving them.

Contractor Cameron O’Connor always thought he’d be the one to buy the historic house on Bay View Road when it was sold. He’s kept an eye on all these years, fist for Lilly and Ted Cavanaugh, then for their niece Lynley Sebastian, and lately just in memory of all the kindness the Cavanaughs showed him. His profession helps him appreciate the historical significance of the house, but it’s his personal history with it that is responsible for the emotional tie he feels. At first, he begins to help Ellie make repairs because he expects to buy the house from her, but the more time they spend together, the greater the attraction he feels for her. But the questions keep mounting too. Why is a woman too broke to pay someone to make the repairs she clearly is unqualified to do herself driving a Mercedes? Can it be mere coincidence that Ryder was also the maiden name of Lilly Cavanaugh? Why does Ellie look so familiar?

Ellie’s intentions to stay uninvolved during her stay in St. Dennis don’t last long when she’s confronted with the friendliness and good will of the townspeople. Visits to deliver cupcakes and freshly baked bread, invitations to beer and bakery tastings, and First Families Day, and the attention of a certain hot contractor all lead to St. Dennis feeling more and more like home. Add a dog that comes to say and the family secrets that link Ellie to the house in surprising ways, and she is soon establishing roots in what was supposed to be strictly a temporary refuge. But will the welcome and friendship extended to Ellie Ryder be there for Ellis Chapman. Can she create a home here for the young half-sister she has just discovered? Will Cameron be interested in Ellis Chapman? These are the questions Ellie longs—and fears—to have answered.

The Long Way Home is the sixth book in Mariah Stewart’s Chesapeake Diaries series. Ellie and Cameron appear to be ordinary, likeable people, but appearances are deceptive. Both have things in their pasts that brought them shame and pain. Both know what it means to be at the center of shocking events they had no part in creating, and they both have to learn to trust enough to share their secrets if they are to have the life they want. Like the other characters in this series, these protagonists reveal that life in this small town is anything but simple and uneventful. More sweet than sizzling, this novel is a welcome addition to a series that blends heartwarming romance with layers of mystery.

Readers who have been following the series will enjoy the new story and delight in catching up with characters from the earlier books. Lucy and Clay’s wedding is a particular treat. Readers who like the small-town series of Robyn Carr, Emily March, and JoAnn Ross will likely find in Stewart’s St. Dennis another place that makes them long for a return visit.

The small-town romance trend shows no signs of fading. It seems that almost every month brings a new entry for the subgenre. I’ve lost count of how many I read regularly. How do you feel about small-town settings? Are you happy to see more, or are you ready for more big city scenes?

Bonus Review: When You Wish Upon a Duke

When You Wish Upon a Duke

By Isabella Bradford

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Release Date: July 31, 2012

One night shortly after Lady Charlotte Wylder, the eldest daughter of the late Earl of Hervey and his countess, rescues her youngest sister’s cat from a tree, she learns that she has been betrothed since she was in her cradle to James Augustus FitzCharles, the third Duke of Marchbourne. Sometime later Charlotte and her duke meet face to face when she has again climbed a tree, this time on the duke’s estate, to rescue Fig the cat. The two quite literally fall for one another as they tumble from the tree. Tree climbing will continue to figure prominently in this story.

Charlotte is a free-spirited innocent, and her duke is a bit on the stuffy side, very concerned about appearances and about the scandalous connection that made him a duke with royal blood in his veins, the great-grandson of a king. Some conflict based on their very different natures is inevitable, and March’s fear that their lusty coupling is inappropriate for his lady duchess leaves Charlotte to wonder what happened to her merry groom and the lovemaking she thoroughly enjoyed. There’s also a villain who creates a spot of bother, but this is fundamentally a light-hearted book. All problems are resolved with a certain humor, and even the villain’s just deserts, while no doubt painful to him, don’t deprive him of life or limb.

Charlotte and March are endearing characters. I thought they were wonderfully paired, and I believed in their HEA.  They both change in the course of the story, something that I’ve learned not to count as a given. Charlotte gains maturity and the confidence to refuse to let Charlotte the person be submerged in Her Grace, the duchess. For his part, March has to let go of his obsession with propriety and appearances. His attitude is more understandable as more of his past is revealed, but he must learn to trust not only Charlotte and her love for him but also his own integrity.

When You Wish Upon a Duke is a book that will make readers smile, but it is lifted above the status of a merely amusing book by the detailed look it offers of the domestic life of a duke and duchess in Georgian England. From descriptions of Charlotte’s quarters in the ducal mansion to the clothes she wears and the food served to the ducal couple, the setting is vibrantly rendered. I especially liked the scene where the duke asks Charlotte to call him March, the name his intimates use, and she agrees to do so if he addresses her by her first name. Both customary behavior and the way this relationship will depart from the customary are revealed in this brief exchange.

I found it refreshing that although there is an arranged marriage, March and Charlotte are eager to fall in love with one another and committed to one another’s happiness. It was also pleasant to encounter a hero who was neither a rake nor a recluse brooding over nameless wrongs. The focus of the novel is unswervingly on the hero and heroine, but readers see enough of Charlotte’s sisters, especially the youngest, to trust they will prove interesting heroines in their turn. I must admit the one scene that disturbed me was Charlotte’s parting from her family. Their disappearance from the story was convenient for the narrative, but the manner seemed heartless. March has a cousin whom I found interesting and would like to see more of. I have a suspicion about him, and I will be interested in seeing if I’m correct.  If I’m wrong, I’ll just have to imagine I’m right. 

Lest you think that Isabella Bradford is a debut author, I hasten to include the information that it is a pseudonym for Susan Holloway Scott, who has written five excellent historical novels under her own name and more than thirty historical romances as Miranda Jarrett. Having enjoyed books written under both those identities, I expected to enjoy this one.  My expectations were met.

The second book in the series, When the Duchess Says Yes will be released September 25 with the final book in the trilogy, When the Duke Found Love, to follow on November 27. I look forward to both of them, but I’m also hoping for more historical fiction from Susan Holloway Scott. And the covers of books two and three are even more gorgeous than the cover of WYWUAD.

There seems to be an epidemic of authors writing under several names. Do you find it confusing? Do you always know if you’re reading a true debut author or meeting one you’ve read before in a new guise?

Bonus Review: Forever and a Day

Forever and a Day
By Jill Shalvis
Publisher: Grand Central Forever
Release Date: July 31, 2012

Grace Brooks wasn’t looking for a job as a dog walker, but when a misdialed call leads to an offer of the job, she needs the money badly enough to take it. She can only hope her high-achieving super scientists parents never find out that their adopted daughter is reduced to such work. She hasn’t told them that her promising career as a CPA for a banking firm in Seattle came to an abrupt end when she rejected the horizontal position her boss saw as part of the job. Lucky Harbor was exactly one gas tank away from Seattle, but Grace has found friends and a sense of belonging in the small town. She hasn’t found a steady job however, and unlike her friends Mallory Quinn (Lucky in Love) and Amy Michaels (At Last), her social life is sadly lacking as well. What she doesn’t know is that the phone call about a dog walking job she never sought is going to change everything.

Josh Scott hates chaos, but that’s what his life has become.  Five years earlier, his parents were killed in an automobile accident that left Josh, already the single father of an infant son, responsible for his sixteen-year-old sister Anna, who was left a paraplegic by the same accident, and for his father’s medical practice. Things haven’t become any easier. Josh works two shifts each week in Lucky Harbor ER and volunteers once a week at a local clinic while keeping the practice he still thinks of as his father’s going, parenting a five-year-old who has been in a barking stage since Anna introduced a pug puppy into the mix, and riding herd on Anna who is in full-throttle rebellion against her limited, boring life. When his baby sitter bails on him, he really is desperate. He needs help, and Grace needs a temporary job.

Grace is still looking for a job beyond Luck Harbor, one more in keeping with parental expectations. Josh is still determined to avoid a relationship that would mean one more person depending on him. But the chemistry between them proves stronger than their resolutions, and their hearts recognize they are meant to be together long before their heads concede the victory to love.

Forever and a Day is the sixth novel in the Luck Harbor series, the third in the Chocoholics trilogy. It’s my favorite of the series. Grace and Josh are a delight together. Their relationship between them grows in a credible manner with an appealing blend of humor, sexy scenes, and genuine communication. Grace allows herself to become the free spirit she was meant to be, and she balances Josh’s sense of responsibility that weighs too heavily upon him at times. Toby and Anna play important roles. Josh’s love for son is shown in heartwarming scenes, and his relationship with Anna has the complications that one might realistically expect given their particular circumstances. I especially liked seeing Grace’s relationships with Toby and Anna develop naturally rather than seeming to be mere extensions of her relationship with Josh.

Fans of the series will enjoy seeing Mallory and Amy enjoying their HEAs, but the book can be appreciated as a standalone. I’m a fan of small-town contemporary romances, and Shalvis has created one of the strongest series in the subgenre with her Lucky Harbor books. There is the strong sense of community that is the heart of such books, but the focus is on the romance between Grace and Josh. If you’re a fan of Shalvis, I predict this book will become one of your favorites. If you’ve never read Shalvis, I highly recommend beginning with this one. It’s a definite winner.

The trend for small-town contemporary romances shows no signs of slowing down. Do you like this subgenre? Which series is your favorite?