A Baker's Dozen of Reviews: Day Three Once Upon a Tower

Once Upon a Tower

By Eloisa James

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: May 28, 2013

Gowan Stoughton, Duke of Kinross, Chief of Clan MacAulay, is a man who knows the value of time. He might prefer to be in the Highlands fishing for salmon to being in an English ballroom fishing for a wife, but since he needs information from the Earl of Gilchrist, it seems prudent to combine the two tasks. But Gowan is the one who is hooked at first sight by Gilchrist’s beautiful daughter. He told himself that diligence was the chief criterion for his duchess, but it is not a quality he considers at all in choosing Lady Edith Gilchrist for his bride.

Instead, from the moment he sees her, Gowan thinks of Edie in the language of fairy tales. She is “otherworldly.” She looks as if she were “dreaming of her home under a fairy hill.” Her hair “gleamed like the golden apples of the sun.” Gowan, who professes to value the utilitarian, suddenly discovers that Shakespeare has his uses since the bard gives Gowan the words to express his inexpressible feelings for the glorious Edie: “I never saw true beauty till this night.”

(Romeo and Juliet, Act 1, Scene 5).

The reader soon discovers that Edie’s silence and serenity, qualities that greatly appeal to Gowan, as well as her “burning touch” are attributable to her feverishness. Edie is much less ethereal and much more unconventional than Gowan knows. He doesn’t even know that music is the most important thing to her. Edie is a gifted cellist, good enough to have been a performer had she been born male. From the first letter he receives from her, Gowan learns that his first impression of Edie was an incomplete picture. It will take marriage to teach him how incomplete.

Since she was so ill when they met, Edie knows even less about Gowan than he knows about her. She’s not even certain what the man she has promised to marry looks like. Her strongest memory is of his “enchanting Scottish burr.” Combining her own vague recollection of him with what her stepmother tells her, Edie concludes that she is about to become the wife of “a Scotsman the size of a bloody tree with no sense of humor and an impulsive bent.”  

The letters Edie and Gowan exchange do reveal something of who they are, but they are still essentially strangers when they marry. They are also quite young: she is nineteen and he is twenty-one. They are also both single-minded in their obsessions, as the young are prone to be, and neither really understands what drives the other. Nor have they learned the necessity of compromise.

Gowan learns that Edie’s practice time with her cello is important to her, but he does not understand that music determines how Edie thinks, how she views the external world. He says to her at one point, “You may be a musician, but that is not the sum of you.” And Edie’s response is to think he is wrong, that music is the sum of her. It isn’t all of who she is, of course, but it does color everything about her. This is particularly true because for all of her life, music has been both her single passion and her sole means of real connection with her only parent.

Gowan is as consumed by his responsibilities as duke and chief of his clan as Edie is by her music. Edie subconsciously understands this, as one intuitive response reveals: “Hundreds of years of self-assurance had been drilled into him with the same rigor as had her musical scales.

Earlier she recognizes that Gowan is “as driven as she. . . Though she wasn’t entirely sure in what direction.” What she can’t know is that for Gowan, as for Edie, the importance of this role is magnified by what his father was.

The potential for problems is there from the beginning, and then the problems with their sex life complicate the situation even more. Edie and Gowan are not merely sexually inexperienced; they are true innocents. Edie barely understands what the word “prick” means. She doesn’t even know how to flirt. She is dependent upon what her stepmother tells her, and some of Layla’s advice is very bad indeed. Gowan was betrothed to his first fiancée when he was very young, and the licentiousness of his parents has made him adopt high standards for his own behavior. He was too honorable to be faithless, believing that lying with another woman when his troth was  pledged would dishonor both his fiancée and himself. He found the idea of paying for sex “distasteful.” Gowan knows more about sex than Edie does, but his knowledge is based on certain illustrated volumes in his library. Their ignorance combined with their inability to communicate is disastrous.

The first seventeen chapters show Gowan and Edie meeting and moving toward marriage. The next twenty-five show their marriage moving toward trouble, deeply in trouble, and achieving their HEA. Eloisa James is at her finest when she writes marriage-in trouble stories, and Once Upon a Tower is no exception.

I spent a great deal of time trying to get all the reasons I love this book into coherent paragraphs. I couldn’t do it. My enthusiasm just kept overpowering my rational thought process. So instead of reasoned criticism, I give you a list:

The Top Ten Reasons I Loved Once Upon a Tower

(in addition to Gowan and Edie, of course)

10. Literary Allusions

One of the things I always look forward to in an Eloisa James novel is the literary allusions. I have fun trying to identify those she sneaks in, but even when they come with full identification, I enjoy them. The Romeo and Juliet references were a joy in this one, but an even greater delight was the use of John Donne’s aubade, a poem I love for many reasons.

9. Smythe-Smith

What fun to have Edie and Gowan attending the wedding of Honoria Smyth-Smith to the Earl of Chatteris! I love the idea that they are all part of one world. I might say it’s “Just like Heaven.”

8. Letters

I loved the letters! I thought they were funny, and I thought they served a significant purpose  in allowing Gowan and Edie to learn a little more about one another before their second meeting.

7. Bardolph

Since Bardolph’s name comes from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I and Henry V, I might have included him with the literary allusions, but another of my particular joys in reading Eloisa James is decoding the names she gives tertiary characters. My favorite is Prufrock, Piers’s butler in When Beauty Tamed the Beast, but Bardolph is a close second. He’s a terrific character, much worthier than the character whose name he bears.

6. Layla

First, Layla with her cheroots, her empty flirtations, her unhappy marriage, and her loving heart is a vibrant character , one who is easy to like. But I also thought her name fit perfectly into the novel, evoking both the character from Arabic literature whose love story has some similarities to Romeo and Juliet and Eric Clapton’s song by that title (based on the literary character). I thought a couple of Clapton’s lines fit EJ’s Layla well: “You've been running and hiding much too long. / You know it's just your foolish pride.”

5. The Dress

I can’t say too much about this without moving into spoiler territory, but readers will understand the importance of The Dress, the one that makes you look the way you want to look, the one that affects him exactly the way you want it too. Edie wears such a dress. It is “China rose. . . . Darker than cinnabar, more saturated than claret . . . well, close to claret.”  It is amazing, and it leads to a Moment. The only other thing I’m going to say is that nobody can make a kiss on the hand as sexy as Eloisa James does.

 4. The Tower

Part of the fun of reading James’s fairy tale romances is considering how she uses elements of the traditional story, sometimes staying true to them in order to suggest the original and sometimes giving one a twist to make it reflect a quite different meaning. Edie is beautiful like Rapunzel. In fact Gowan’s comparison of her hair to the “golden apples of the sun” echoes the description from the Grimm Brothers’ tale (1812) that calls her “the most beautiful child under the sun.”  Rapunzel is musical as well. It is her voice that first enchants the king’s son. Edie is a cellist rather than a singer, but her playing enchants Gowan the first time he hears her. Rapunzel and her prince marry, but they must overcome obstacles before they begin their HEA. Edie and Gowan’s story follows the same pattern. The prince wanders blind, weeping over the loss of his wife. Gowan’s blindness is metaphoric, but he too wanders and weeps for the same cause.  And in both stories, the wife’s tears are healing.

The twist comes with the tower. Rapunzel is shut into a tower that “had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a little window.” The tower sounds similar to Edie’s, but Edie chooses to shut herself into her tower rather than being imprisoned there by an enchantress.  Readers with a Freudian leaning may see the tower as a phallic symbol. I was more interested in seeing Edie’s making choices and taking action as evidence of her maturing and recognizing her autonomy, qualities that link Edie more closely to Charlotte Rose de Caumont de la Force’s version of the tale, "Persinette"  (1697).

3. The Groveling

Sometimes my affection for a book is shadowed by the hero’s insufficient groveling for what I see as serious offenses. EJ’s Potent Pleasures is one of those books. But Gowan grovels beautifully. Additionally, other characters—several of them-- say to Gowan all the things I wanted to shout at him. Wonderful!

2. The Language

The language of Eloisa James’s novels is an abiding joy. There are the lovely, lyrical lines that sing softly in the reader’s ear. I pick out one sentence in every EJ novel that particularly satisfies my love of the lyrical line. My pick for OUAT: “Her lips held a natural curve, as if she had a kiss or a smile in reserve, one that she had never given away.” 

Beyond the lyricism, there is a sense of rightness in every word. James gives the reader the feeling that each word is chosen with precision and purpose. For example, in one scene Layla claims that her husband doesn’t like her. Edie says to her, “I believe you do like each other. You just need to talk more.” The language here is simple; twelve of the thirteen words in the two sentences are monosyllabic.  But the rhythm is perfect for the situation, intensifying the directness and genuineness of Edie’s response. Her words are also touched with irony since the reader understands what Edie does not: her words will apply as well to Edie and Gowan.

      1. The Totally Satisfying HEA

No matter what else I love about a romance novel, it can never reach my top tier of favorites if the ending     fails to leave me believing that the love of the H/H is the kind that can survive all the blows life will deliver. The ending of OUAT leaves me with this feeling with no reservations. The romantic gesture is perfect, the luscious frosting on the very best cake.

I highly recommend this one. Imagine I’m sending up “Read This!” balloons to remind you that it’s available in one week.

Are you a fan of fairy tale romances? What qualities do your top tier favorites have in common?

A Serial Review: With This Kiss, Part Three

With This Kiss, Part Three

By Eloisa James

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: March 26, 2013

The final section of Eloisa James’s first serial romance ends with a sigh-worthy exemplification of the healing powers of love and a happily ever after that leaves readers with a satisfied smile. Colin, with all his alphaness in ascendance, offers Grace persuasive evidence that it is she, not Lily he desires, that she, Grace, is the only woman he wants in his bed, in his dreams, and in his heart. In a scene rich with sizzle and symbolism, Grace becomes “blind” in order to see the truth.

Another classically symbolic scene that is both passionate and tender precedes one of the most memorably moving wedding scenes I’ve encountered in romance fiction. In a lovely (both in the sense of being full of love and in the sense of being beautiful and pleasing to the beholder) role reversal, Grace becomes the warrior, winning Colin from the darkness into which war plunged him literally and metaphorically.

Every time they made love, every morning he spent training Daedalus, every afternoon he spent writing, every evening when he read aloud another letter, every time he teased her or asked her a question about one of her paintings, she dragged him farther onto her side. The side with life in it, not death.

All this and the author still gives us a delightful epilogue that confirms the tradition of summers at Arbor House overflowing with children designed to fill their parents’ hearts with more love and their heads with gray hairs continues happily ever after. With This Kiss has joined my collection of all-time favorite romances.

The wedding scene in this book is one that that I will remember with a sigh of appreciation. What’s your favorite wedding scene from a romance novel?

A Serial Review: With This Kiss, Part II

With This Kiss, Part Two
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?

A Serial Review: With This Kiss, Part I

I am reposting a review I pulled at the author's request. Ms. James had legitimate concerns about spoilers and blunting readers' anticipation of the serial releases of this book.

With This Kiss, Part One

By Eloisa James

Publisher: Avon Impulse

Release Date: 

March 12, 2013

Lady Grace Ryburn, eldest daughter of James and Theo, the Duke and Duchess of Ashbrook (The Ugly Duchess) knew by the time she was ten that Colin Barry, eldest (adopted) son of Griffin and Phoebe, Lord and Lady Barry (“Seduced by a Pirate”) was the most handsome, kindest, most charming boy in all England. By the time she was fourteen, she realized that Colin, six years older than she, made her heart beat in a way that no one else did. By the time she was eighteen, she knew that she was in love with Lieutenant Colin Barry of the Royal Navy. When she was nineteen, she watched Captain Colin Barry fall in love at first sight with her beautiful, sparkling, younger sister, Lily.

At twenty-five, Colin has seen so much death in battle that even his dreams are blood-filled. The beautiful, laughing Lily reminds him of a world of candlelight and champagne; she knows nothing of the death and decay that has surrounded him during his years at war. The perceptive Grace knows too much; she knows he hates war, that he hates the letters he must write to the mothers of all the sons who have perished while Colin has emerged unscathed. It is not until Colin is back at sea that he realizes which sister he truly loves. If only he can return alive and whole, if only Grace does not fall for the Scottish lord who is courting her, if only . . .

From the first sentence, I was captivated by the characters and the world Eloisa James creates in this first installment of her serial romance, With This Kiss. I love Grace! She is intelligent, intuitive, and kind-hearted. Even when she watches Lily effortlessly capture what Grace herself most wants, she understands that she loves her sister, who is a genuinely nice person. From a very young age, Grace possesses a high degree of self-awareness and self-acceptance. She knows that she likes her place out of the spotlight, observing, analyzing, and using all she discovers in her painting.

Of course, there were moments when I wanted to shake Colin, but even when he doesn’t fully appreciate Grace, I had to love him. He is handsome and honorable and sensitive. And when he does realize his feelings for Grace, he understands what a rare creature she is with her big heart, her talent, and her clear-eyed view of what matters. I always choose a favorite sentence from each Eloisa James story. My favorite from With This Kiss, Part One occurs when Colin realizes how special Grace is: “She [Lily] was a waltz, and Grace was a hymn.”

I love friends-to-lovers stories, I love series, and I love these characters. Not only was I fully engaged with Grace and Colin, but I also thoroughly enjoyed the glimpses of James and Theo and Griffin and Phoebe and a look at their ongoing HEAs. I finished part one painfully eager for part two. My recommendation: order this so that you can begin reading immediately. I predict you too will lose your heart to these characters.

Part II will be released on March 19 and Part III on March 26. My reviews will be posted on the Thursday following the release dates.

Serials that harken back to an earlier day when readers eagerly awaited new issues of popular magazines in order to read the latest installment in novels by canonical writers such as Charles Dickens and Edith Wharton and popular romance writers such as Faith Baldwin and Kathleen Norris seem to be trending in 2013. What do you think of serials? Have you read any?

Congratulations to 

Donna and Kellie Kamryn,

 

the winners of the Kindle copies of

Seduced by a Pirate by Eloisa James!

Winners, please contact me at jangarho at gmail dot com with the email address to which you wish your copy sent. I'll send them to you on release date, October 30. 

I'll be back tomorrow with a new review.

Bonus Review: Seduced by a Pirate

Seduced by a Pirate

By Eloisa James

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: October 30, 2012

Sir Griffin Barry is on his way home after spending almost half his lifetime at sea. Married at seventeen shortly before he jumped out a window and out of his new wife’s life, he was a pirate by eighteen. Four years later, he was captain of the feared Flying Poppy, named for the wife he left somewhere near Bath. Fourteen years later, he’s returning with a limp, a blue poppy tattoo on one cheekbone, a pardon from the king who has declared him a privateer rather than a pirate, and a case of nerves almost the equal of those that rendered him impotent on his wedding night. Going home seems to be his only option, but he has serious qualms about the reception he’s likely to receive. 

Phoebe Eleanor Barry, a merchant’s daughter with no desire to live in the style of the class into which she married, is content with her life at Arbor House. She has her friends, her three children, and a comfortable income of her own. Her serenity is shaken when she reads that Griffin has returned to England, but surely a pirate won’t be interested in life in Somerset, she reasons. Pirates go to prison. Perhaps that’s where he is. But Phoebe has scarcely ceased comforting herself with these reminders when two scarred and tattooed strangers arrive at Arbor House and she reluctantly prepares to greet these men who must be friends of her husband.

Griffin and his lady are quite a pair. For fourteen years, he’s thought his wife’s name was Poppy; for fourteen years, she’s thought her husband was short, slight, and unprepossessing. They discover they are both wrong. Lady Barry doesn’t use her title, and she dislikes the name Poppy, infinitely preferring her own name. Griffin at thirty-one is nothing like the boy who left. He’s big and bronzed and dangerously male. He’s also determined that he is going to be a husband to Phoebe. Can he convince his lady that he can stay on the right side of the law and out of other women’s beds? Can she resist the seductive ways of this pirate?

Seduced by a Pirate is the perfect title for this novella. I’m not a fan of pirate romances, and I could count on one hand with fingers to spare the books in that category that have been keepers for me. But I was easily seduced by Griffin Barry. I thought he was a terrific character in The Ugly Duchess and hoped to learn more of him and his Poppy. I cheered when James announced she had written the novella, and it was even better than I expected. I smiled from the first page to the final scene, only stopping when a grin or a giggle replace the smile.

Griffin is a wonderful hero, an experienced adult who knows himself and has come to value honesty and compassion. He has a healthy disregard for nonessentials and a killer sense of humor. Add to that his understanding of children and a sexiness quotient off the scale, and you have a dream of a hero. Phoebe is intelligent, sensible, loving, and as self-knowledgeable as Griffin. Watching them discover one another and fall in love was sheer delight. 

The secondary characters are also richly drawn. I found Griffin’s relationship with his father funny and moving in turn. Shark, a member of Griffin’s pirate crew turned general factotum, and Nanny McGillycuddy are warm-hearted and amusing, and the three children are distinct personalities, all appealing--although I confess Margaret, who is clearly destined for great things, was my favorite. In fact, there was nothing about this novella that I didn’t love.

It will be available in eleven days, and I promise you won’t find more reading joy for a penny less than a buck anywhere. Because this was my #1 fun read of the year, I’m giving away two Kindle copies to two randomly selected commenters (U. S. only). And remember, if you don’t have a Kindle, you can download the app and read it on your computer. As for me, I’m all set to let Griffin seduce me again.


What’s the last book you read that you loved so much you wanted to share it?

Tuesday Review: The Duke Is Mine

The Duke Is Mine

By Eloisa James
Publisher: Avon
Release Date: December 27, 2011
Five Stars

Olivia Lytton was born to be a duchess, and her whole life has been a process of preparing her for that role. She and her twin sister Georgiana, younger by seven minutes, have been schooled in all the finer points of proper duchess behavior. The result in Georgiana’s case is perfection. From her slender beauty to her every word and move, she is ideal duchess material. Olivia, on the other hand, is disastrously frank with a fondness for bawdy limericks and a lushly curved body that fails the elegance test. Nevertheless, by virtue of being first born, she is destined to be the bride of Rupert Blakemore, Marquess of Montsurrey and heir to the Duke of Canterwick. Rupert is five years her junior and a simple soul who has none of Olivia’s intelligence and wit. But Rupert has reached the age of eighteen, and his father is eager to see him wed. Olivia is unhappy but resigned to her fate. Her consolation is that her marriage will enable her to dower Georgiana and help her to find a man with whom she can find happiness.

Surprisingly, it is young Rupert who delays the marriage because he has a vision of achieving military glory. He departs with a retinue his father is persuaded will keep him safe, leaving Olivia with the true love of his life, Lucy, a most non-aristocratic dog. Meanwhile Georgiana has received an invitation from the mother of Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, the Duke of Sconce, a woman bent on finding a proper duchess for her widowed son. Olivia accompanies her sister on her visit to the ducal domicile.

The Duke of Sconce, like Olivia, is resigned to marriage. His first marriage was a love match on his part, and it ended in tragedy. He allows his mother to play matchmaker because he has determined to have nothing more to do with love. His devotion now is reserved for mathematics, a field where he has better fortune solving the problems. But from his first sight of Olivia, his life begins to change. He finds her beautiful and the more time they spend together, the greater distraction she becomes. Since his mother is putting Georgiana and another young woman through a series of tests to determine their fitness to become the next Duchess of Sconce, Quin and Olivia are often in each other’s company. Soon to the physical attraction that sparked between them early are added an appreciation of one another’s intelligence, an openness in their communication, and the sense of wholeness they discover in one another. Georgiana thinks Quin will make her a perfect husband. Olivia’s betrothal papers to a man who is fighting for his country have been signed. What are two honorable people who are hopelessly in love to do?

The Duke Is Mine is the third book in James’s Happily Ever After series, novels that offer the author’s take on classic fairy tales. Although I loved A Kiss at Midnight (Cinderella) and When Beauty Tamed the Beast (Beauty and the Beast), I had reservations about a romance based on the Princess and the Pea. Unlike the other two, it was not a favorite fairy tale, and I didn’t see it as romantic at all. I should have trusted the author. James takes elements from Hans Christian Andersen’s tale and weaves them into a story that is truly and delightfully a romance.

Like the princess in the fairy tale, when Olivia first meets “the prince,” she is a refugee from the storm, “in a sad condition; the water trickled down from her hair, and her clothes clung to her body.” But unlike the original bedraggled princess, Olivia doesn’t feel like a real princess—or even a real duchess. She is convinced that she is totally unsuited physically and temperamentally to be a duchess, and it is not she but her sister who is being tested by the reigning matriarch. Olivia is everything Quin’s mother finds most unsuitable for a real duchess. But Olivia is no passive princess who goes meekly off to sleep on twenty mattresses. She challenges Quin from their first exchange. I loved her irrepressibility and vulnerability and determination to be herself. I loved that she was more earthy than ethereal. I loved her wit and her bawdy sense of humor. I loved her intelligence, strength, and honor. I loved her understanding heart.

And Quin! I fell hard for him from the first description.

. . . the Duke of Sconce was the sort of man repulsed by the very idea of fairy tales. He neither read nor thought about them (let alone believed in them); the notion of playing a role in one would have been preposterous, and he would have rejected outright the notion that he resembled in any fashion the golden-haired, velvet-lad princes generally found in such tales.

Tarquin Brook-Chatfield, Duke of Sconce—known as Quin to his intimates, who numbered exactly two—was more like the villain in those stories than the hero, and he knew it.

I loved Quin’s intelligence, his passion for mathematics, and his logic. Most of all, I loved his overwhelming feelings for Olivia.

This is a story rich in humor, and I smiled a lot and sometimes laughed aloud while reading it. But as the story unfolded, I became aware how much more there was to the novel than a few hours entertainment. James takes a company of flawed characters and from the hero and heroine to Quin’s arrogant mother to the plebian pet, Lucy, shows love making them all “real.” Quin’s mother might have been just another controlling mother, but James reveals that it is not false pride but genuine love for her son who was devastated by his first marriage that motivates her actions. Even Rupert’s manipulative father becomes endearing when the reader sees his pride and love for his son. Rupert’s foil, his cousin Justin (a Bieber tribute in honor of James’s daughter), might have been shallow but instead possesses an enviable joie de vivre. Georgiana’s perfection would have been boring had the reader not seen the unconventional ambition that lay beneath her polished exterior. And most surprising, Rupert, who in less skillful hands might have been little more than a buffoon, become the realest of all—not because he ends up a military hero but because he had all along the sensitivity and compassion that are the very definition of realness, as the story of the Princess and the Pea illustrates.

The Duke Is Mine has all the things I look for in an Eloisa James novel: the wit, the literary allusions, the lyrical moments, the love scene in an unexpected setting. Quin and Olivia’s tree house, which “had windows on all four sides open to the moonlight, which poured in like fairy dust turned silver,” may just be my favorite in a long list of such scenes.

This is a book to which I will return, one that I will reread often, anticipating that it will break my heart in places and set it singing in others. I highly recommend it.

Do you like romances based on fairy tales? What are some of your favorites?

Tuesday Review: Short Takes

This is Thanksgiving week, and one the many things—great and small--that I’m grateful for in 2011  is the proliferation of novellas and short stories for ereaders. I know that not everyone likes short fiction, but I do, especially when I’m busier than usual and don’t have time for a full length novel. I’m on deadline again, and as usual, I’m pushing to make it and will probably upload my final article minutes before midnight on November 28, making the deadline by a hair. I have a dozen or more novels I’m eager to read, but they will have to wait another week. But I will steal the time during lunch break or just before bedtime to read some short fiction. I’ve already read and enjoyed the following.

“Winning the Wallflower” by Eloisa James ($.99, novella, Avon Impulse, available December 6)

 Cyrus Ravensthorpe, the only son of a successful solicitor and a duke’s daughter who scandalized the ton by falling in love , eloping, and living quite happily forever after, has devoted his life to restoring his family’s reputation and status. He has gone about achieving his goal quite methodically: he has earned great wealth, bought an estate (the one where his mother grew up that his irresponsible, arrogant cousin has been forced to sell), and proposed to towering Lucy Towerton whose height and propriety have made her a wallflower unlikely to capture the title her mother wants for her.

When Lucy unexpectedly inherits a fortune, her snob of a mother pressures her to break the engagement to Ravensthorpe and lines up lords eager to court the new heiress. At first, Lucy is reluctant to break the engagement because Ravensthorpe’s good lucks and perfect height for a tall lady have captured her interest, but she decides handsomeness and proper height may make  a dancing partner but won’t compensate for a man who doesn’t see her, who doesn’t want the person she is rather than an eligible bride. By the time Ravensthorpe discovers that Lucy is not just what he needs to fulfill his plan but the one woman he must have to fill his heart and life, it’s almost too late.

I love Lucy! I love her humor and intelligence and vulnerability, and I love seeing her gain in awareness of her own worth. I love that she becomes self-confident enough to refuse to settle. Ravensthorpe has a sharper learning curve, and although he didn’t inspire the same affection that Lucy did, I did delight in watching him learn.

Lucy’s best friend Olivia shares her insecurities, her mother problems, her unsatisfactory betrothal, and her dream of more. If I had not already read The Duke Is Mine, I would be longing for Olivia’s story. But since I have read The Duke Is Mine and relished every syllable of Olivia’s story, I’m longing for the release date (December 27, 2011) so that we can all rave about it together. Look for my review of that novel next month.

“The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Carrie” by Lori Wilde ($1.99, novella, Avon Impulse)

If you read The First Love Cookie Club (December 2010), you may remember one of the legends of Twilight, Texas: “On Christmas Eve, if you sleep with kismet cookies under your pillow and dream of your own true love, he will be your destiny.” A year later, Wilde takes us back to Twilight, Texas, with three Christmas Cookie Chronicles. I read the first one.

Eight years ago, on Christmas, Carrie MacGregor and Mark Leland, high school sweethearts, eloped to Las Vegas. When they returned home to Twilight, Mark’s parents and Carrie’s older sister persuaded the teenagers that they should annul their marriage. It seems that Carrie and Mark are the pair that casts into question the legend that is the heart of Twilight. More than a century ago, a statue was erected in the park near the town square memorializing the love between two other teenage lovers: a Union soldier and a Southern belle whose love survived the Civil War and fifteen years of separation. Legend says that a lover who threw a penny into the fountain in Sweetheart Park assured a reunion and a happily-ever-after with his/her high school sweetheart. Carrie threw more pennies than she could count into the fountain, but she has never heard from Mark Leland.

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But that’s about to change. Mark, now host of a reality, myth-bursting show Fact or Fiction, is returning to Twilight to check out the facts of the town’s greatest legend. Will the hometown hero destroy the town? An even more important question may be whether the legend’s power will work for the hero and his heroine. The chemistry between Mark and Carrie is as explosive as ever, but can an L. A. star and a small-town girl really reunite for Christmas and for their own HEA?

If you have enjoyed Wilde’s other Twilight books, you will appreciate the community feel, the familiar characters, and the unabashed sentiment of this novella. If you are new to Wilde, this sweet bite with a touch of spice may well inspire you to feast on the series.

The first novella will be followed by “The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Raylene” ($1.99, novella, Avon Impulse, November 29) and “The Christmas Cookie Chronicles: Christine” ($1.99, novella, Avon Impulse, December 20).


 

“The French Maid” by Sabrina Jeffries (free, short story, Pocket)

Jeffries's story about a lonely lady unhappy with her ambitious political husband who has no time for her and the mysterious Babette Lebeau, a French maid with a gift for marriage makeovers was released  last month, but I read it only a few days ago. It’s short and sweet, and it left me with a smile and a wish to see more of Babette, who steals the show.

“A Very Holly Christmas” by Sheila Roberts (free, sample, St. Martin’s)

Ambrose the cat is on his ninth life, and it’s in jeopardy when a feline Christmas prayer brings a reprieve and a new home with a fireman who, whether he knows it or not, needs Ambrose. This one is an amusing story, sure to please cat lovers that serves to whet the reader’s taste for Roberts’s Christmas novel The Nine Lives of Christmas (October 25).

“The Glass Case” by Kristin Hannah (free, short story, St. Martin’s)

April Bannerman is not exactly unhappy, but she is questioning the choices that led her to where she is-- mother of three young children, wife to the only man she’s ever loved, fixture in the town she grew up in. Then in a moment, routine turns to nightmare, and April rediscovers not only what matters most but also that love is larger than she knew. This is a quick read, but it has the ordinary people and the extraordinary emotional punch that I look for in Hannah’s fiction.

“Dashing Through the Snow” by Diane Farr ($.99, novella, Amazon Digital Services)

This is the reissue of a Christmas novella I loved and was delighted to reread: “The Reckless Miss Ripley” from Signet’s 2000 Christmas anthology, A Regency Christmas Eve. With an irrepressible heroine, an endearing beta hero, and the warmth and smart dialogue that made Diane Farr a favorite, it’s a winner. I hope these reissues mean that more Diane Farr Regencies await us.

“Lord Samhain’s Night” by Jo Beverley ($.99, novella)

The only Jo Beverley Regency I didn’t own, this is a paranormal tale about a love triangle that should never have happened and the danger of challenging the lord of death. This is the first time this novella has been available since its original publication in 1992.

“Only Us: A Fool’s Gold Holiday” by Susan Mallery  ($1.59, novella, HQN)

Veterinarian Cameron McKenzie is all Carina Fiore ever wanted, and she loves his young daughter Rina devotedly too. But Cameron, whose former wife walked out on him and his infant daughter, thinks friendship is more permanent than the pleasure and promise of a Christmas kiss. This Christmas romance should please readers who are always ready for another visit to Fool’s Gold, California.

 

“Mistletoe Mine: An Eternity Springs Novella” by Emily March ($1.99, Ballantine, November 21)

Emily March/Geralyn Dawson made an Eternity Springs fan of me with Angel’s Rest, the first book in the series, and I loved the Christmas short “A Callahan Carol” that she shared with readers last year to end the Geralyn Dawson Callahan series and to introduce Eternity Springs. So I was jubilant when I learned she had written another Christmas story, this one set in Eternity Springs and a reunion tale, my favorite trope.

Emma and Jared Stapleton have been estranged for three years, but now their only child Molly is planning a holiday wedding in Eternity Springs. Can the magic of this special town, the wonder of this special season, and the love of a beloved child work a miracle on two wounded hearts?

This one will touch your heart and leave you eager for Lover’s Leap (December 27, 2011), Sarah Reese’s story, one that I’ve been longing for since I read the first book.

“Christmas Scandal . . . Not by Jeanne Savery” (free—may be $.99 later, short story, Ellora’s Cave)

I love Savery’s The Family Matchmaker and The Christmas Matchmaker, and so I was pleased to find this story about two spinster sisters who are foils for one another and sanctuary for a winter visitor. I’ve already bought Runaway Scandal and House of Scandal because I want to read more of the adventures of Elf and Ally.

What ebook bargains have you discovered? What books are you most thankful for Thanksgiving 2011?