The Twelve Days of Christmas in September: Day Nine--Christmas Angel

Christmas Angel

By Jo Beverley

Publisher: ePublishing Works

Release Date: July 12 2013

(Print edition released in 1992)

Leander Knollis, Earl of Charrington, was born in Istanbul, and, as the son of an English diplomat, he has spent most of lie abroad. But having survived Vitoria, Toulouse, and Waterloo, he has returned to England with a sense of his own mortality and a determination to settle down with a congenial wife. His problem is that all the eligible maidens he has met persist in falling in love with him, and Leander believes himself incapable of romantic love. Leaving the lovelorn misses in London, Leander sets out for Hartwell, the Surrey cottage where his friend Lucien de Vaux, Marquess of Arden, and his wife Beth are still enjoying newlywed bliss. Some might be reluctant to intrude, but Lee, as he is known to his friends, belongs to the Company of Rogues, and he is certain of a welcome from a fellow rogue. Not only is he welcomed, but Beth has a suggestion of a prospective bride, one certain not to fall in love with him.

Judith Rossiter is not the typical candidate for the bride of an earl. The daughter of a poor curate with a large family and the widow of a popular poet, she doesn’t move in aristocratic circles. Since her husband’s income ended with his death, she is dependent on a small quarterly sum provided by her brother-in-law. It barely covers the cost of the tiny cottage where she lives with her two children, Bastian, 11, and Rosie, 6. Judith is hoping to find the funds to provide at least a meager Christmas for her children. Known as the Weeping Widow because her love story, thanks to her husband’s poems which celebrated his “angel bride,” is the stuff of legends, Judith's identity as the woman eternally mourning Sebastian Rossiter is frozen in popular imagination. Therein lies her appeal for Lee. If she is still in love with husband, she can’t fall in love with him.

Judith thinks Leander is mad when he proposes, but marriage to him would solve all her economic problems. Bastian could have a pony, Rosie could have a pink silk dress, and their futures would be secure. All she has to do is keep secret the fact that her love story is a myth. The infatuation she felt as a romantic sixteen-year-old didn’t last, and she was left with a man so absorbed in his poems and his image as a poet that he was a poor father and a poorer husband. She’s not the only one with secrets. Lee has not shared his concerns about the family problems at Temple Knollis, his grandfather’s obsession and one of the most beautiful houses in England, a house Lee was brought up to hate. With all these secrets, the adjustments of a new marriage with children, and the frightening and unexpected threats to Bastian’s life, things grow more complicated daily. Not least of the complications are the feelings Judith and Lee are developing for each other, feelings far stronger and more complex than the tepid affection they expected. Can they find their way through the maze of tangled emotions and secrets to honesty, love, and a happy family Christmas?

Christmas Angel is the third book in Beverley’s famous Company of Rogues series. Some readers think it is overshadowed by An Arranged Marriage (Nicholas and Eleanor’s story) and An Unwilling Bride (Lucien and Beth’s story), which precede it, and by Forbidden (Francis and Serena’s story), which immediately follows it. Christmas Angel is less dramatic than these other books, but it has its own charms. I like stories with children who are more than props, and it seems especially appropriate that they have a part in a Christmas story. I like the practical marriage turned love match plot. I find Lee and Judith likeable, endearing characters, and I especially enjoy the fact that Beverley allows her readers to glimpse what Christmas was like for people in different circumstances. AND I love the very Christmassy HEA ending.

The Company of Rogues is one of my all-time favorite series. I read each book as it was released, eagerly anticipating each addition to the series and rereading them often. (I’m thrilled that Beverley’s 2014 book, A Shocking Delight, is set in the Rogues’ world.) I have a difficult time imagining Christmas Angel apart from the other books, but I think it can be read as a standalone. A reader approaching it without benefit of the earlier books might not understand the particular nature of the Rogues’ friendships or welcome the appearance of Lucien and Beth and Nicholas and Eleanor with the delight of series fans, but there sould be no difficulty in following the main story.

I’m happy that Beverley has made the first three Rogue books available in e-format. (Forbidden was supposed to be available in August, but it does not show up on Amazon.) These Christmas in September reviews have been contemporaries, and, as much as I love them, my Christmas reading would be incomplete without historical romance. I recommend not only Christmas Angel but also Winter Fire, part of Beverley’s Malloren series and a book I’ve read each Christmas season since it was first released in 2003. I love spending a few hours of my Christmas at Rothgar Abbey.

Have you met Beverley’s Rogues? Who’s your favorite? Have you engaged in the controversies surrounding the first two?

You can find all the Company of Rogues books listed here with a brief description of each.

Series Addiction

From The Wandering Reader

Sometimes subjects just seem to be in season. Everywhere you turn, unrelated groups are talking about the same topic. Such was the case in January 2013 with the subject of related books. Counting online and real life conversations, I’ve been engaged in seven different discussions about books in series during the past thirty-one days. In most of these conversations I have labeled myself a “series addict,” thinking I was exaggerating for a touch of humor. But my most recent discussion with an old friend about the series we read as children made me realize that perhaps “addiction” is the most accurate word to describe our almost life-long love of series. The OED defines “addiction” as “The state or condition of being dedicated or devoted to a thing, esp. an activity or occupation; adherence or attachment, esp. of an immoderate or compulsive kind.”  I think “devoted” is certainly describes annual readings of book over a period of many years, and I’m persuaded many people would see such activity as “immoderate.”

 

The books she and I read and reread and talked about endlessly as girls had been published years before we read them; three of the series our mothers had read as children. We loved the fact that the stories didn’t end after one book. We eagerly followed the adventures of Louisa May Alcott’s March sisters (three books, published 1868-1886), Margaret Sidney’s Five Little Peppers (twelve books, published 1881-1916), Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne Shirley (eight books, published 1908-1939), Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Ingalls family (eight books, published 1932-1943), and Maud Hart Lovelace’s Betsy Ray, Tacy Kelly, and Tib Muller (ten books, published 1940-1955), sharing their lives from their childhoods to their adult lives when they married and had children of their own.

We both have copies of these series on our keeper shelves today and even some of them occasionally, and we both smile when we are reminded that at least with Alcott, Montgomery, Lovelace, and Ingalls, girls in the 21^st century are still reading and loving their books. You can bet we took note last year when NPR published their audience-chosen list of the best YA books of all time, two of our favorite series were on the list: the Anne of Green Gables books at #14 and the Betsy-Tacy books at #100. The Sidney books, perhaps the most Victorian in tone, don’t seem to have survived as well as the others.

The pattern of addiction established when we first began to read has endured for more than half a century. We rarely read the same books these days. Her first choice for leisure reading is mysteries or thrillers with a few romantic suspense series thrown in, and mine is romance, heavy on the historical and contemporary. But our bookshelves are still filled with series, we still reread our favorites, and we still talk about what we are reading. We agreed to research our shelves to see how great a hold our addiction has on our time, our purses, and our space. She has just over a hundred series on her keeper shelves. I have 188 current romance series keepers, including digital and print books, but I did some major purging of books when I moved to a smaller house four years ago. According to my book catalog, at one time I had more than 400 series represented on my bookshelves. 

Grace Burrowes, whose Windham series is among my keepers, was a guest of the Romance Bandits earlier this week. She responded to a comment I made about my favorite series by saying she hoped my keeper shelves were insured since I had a history of historical romance on them. The comment sent me back to check my shelves, and it’s almost true. I have series that range from Georgette Heyer’s Duke of Avon’s family series (three books, 1921-1937) to Manda Collins Ugly Duckling trilogy (three books, 2012-2013). Mary Balogh is the series queen though. I have thirteen series by her. 

The most read series is Jo Beverley’s Company of Rogues (fourteen books and a novella, published 1991-2007). I read An Arranged Marriage (Book #1) when it was released, and as each book in the series was released, I reread all those that preceded it, and then in 2009, I reread the whole series. I’ve read Mary Jo Putney’s Fallen Angels (seven books, published 1993-1997) and Loretta Chase’s Scoundrels (four books and a novella, published 1992-1998) almost as often. Other favorites for rereading include Balogh’s Dark angel sequence (seven books, 1994-1997), Jo Beverley’s Mallorens (twelve books,1993-2012—with #13 due this year), Loretta Chase’s Carsingtons (five books, 2004-2010), Anne Gracie’s Merridew Sisters (four books, 2005-2007), Eloisa James’s Essex Sisters (four books, 2005-2006), Carla Kelly’s Libby’s London Merchant (1991) and One Good Turn (2001), Lisa Kleypas’s Then Came You (1993) and Dreaming of You (1994), and Julia Quinn’s Bridgertons (eight books, 200-2006)—my current reread since reading the second epilogue collection, Happily Ever After (April 2, 2013).

My contemporary keeper collection may be historically less impressive, but it is no less cherished. Nora Roberts is the undisputed queen here. At one time, I had twenty-seven of her series. I now have only seventeen, but her MacGregors (ten books and a novella, 1985-1999), O’Hurleys (four books, 1998-1990), Stanislaskis (six books, 1990-2001), Concannons (three books, 1994-1995), MacKades (four books, 1995-1996), Quinns (four books 1997-2002), and Gallaghers (three books, 1999-2000) are comfort reads that I have read again and again and again and . . . 

Robyn Carr’s Virgin River series (eighteen books and three novellas, 2007-2012) may be the longest series in my collection, but I’ve read her Grace Valley books (three books, 2000-2003) more often. Other series that I often pull out for a reread are Jean Brashear’s Deep in the Heart (four books, 2003-2004), Kathleen Korbel’s (aka Eileen Dryer) Kendalls (five books, 1987-2006), Lisa Kleypas’s Travis family (three books, 2007-2009—and, oh, how I long for a fourth!), Curtiss Ann Matlock’s Valentine books (seven books, 1999-2009), Marilyn Pappano’s Bethlehem series (nine books, 1997-2003), and Susan Elizabeth Phillips’s Chicago Stars (seven books, 1994-2007). Meg Benjamin’s Konigsberg books, Julie James’s FBI/US Attorney books, and Shannon Stacey’s Kowalskis are ongoing series that I love and expect to become favorite rereads.

And I haven’t even touched upon the mystery series—not to mention the Harry Potter books, which I’ve read in full three times, some books more often. Did I say my name is Janga and I’m a series addict?

Do you have a series addiction? Are you a rereader? If you could take only three series to a desert island with you, what would you take?

 

 

 

Memorial Day 2012

“To all the fallen, may they be forever young in heaven. To all the wounded, may they have strength and heal. To all the bereaved, may they feel joy again. And please God . . . may there be one day an end to war.”

Nicholas’s toast in An Unwilling Bride by Jo Beverley

Tuesday Review: Devilish by Jo Beverley

Devilish

By Jo Beverley
Publisher: Signet
Release Date: April 10, 2000
Five Stars

Since the romance community is focused on the RWA national conference in New York this week and awaiting the announcement of the 2011 Rita winners, I thought it was an appropriate time to review an old favorite that was a Rita winner ten years ago. Devilish won in the Long Historical Romance category in 2001.

 I first encountered Beowulf Malloren, Marquess of Rothgar in the pages of My Lady Notorious, the first of Beverley’s Malloren series. I loved the story of Cyn Malloren and Lady Chastity Ware; indeed, My Lady Notorious still holds a place on my all-time top 100 list. But it was Rothgar who haunted me; his was the story for which I most longed. With the rest of Beverley’s eager fans, I waited for Rothgar for just over seven years. I read Devilish the day it was released, staying up much too late to do so—despite an 8 o’clock class to teach the next morning. It was worth the wait.

In Devilish the Mallorens en masse, have returned to Yorkshire for the nuptials of Brand Malloren and Rosa Overton (Secrets of The Night). Their hostess for the event is Rosa’s cousin, Diana Westmount, Countess of Arradale, who bested Rothgar in Secrets of the Night. The chemistry between Rothgar and Diana that was evident in the earlier book gains intensity in Devilish, but both are committed to remaining free of entanglements. Rothgar has determined to remain unmarried because he fears passing on the madness that led his mother to murder his younger sister, and Diana knows that her only hope of retaining her rare powers as a countess in her own right is to remain a “womanly, virginal earl.”

Their resoluteness is tested when King George III, offended by Diana’s unwomanly power, sends a letter commanding Rothgar to escort the countess to London where an appropriate husband must be found for her, one who will relegate her to the proper female role of obedience to husband and king. At the same time the king is determined to end Diana’s dream of filling her father’s role on the Arradale estates, Rothgar has an unknown enemy who is plotting to destroy him. But the external dangers are more easily confronted than the attraction that blazes between these two proud, intelligent, complex people.

There’s always the risk that a highly anticipated book in a series will fail to meet readers’ extraordinarily high expectations, but Devilish met every expectation. For readers who like a full cast of characters from previous books, Beverley gathers all the Mallorens for the wedding. Even the missing, early married Hilda, Lady Steen, with spouse and children, makes an appearance. Only Cyn and Chastity, prospering in Canada, are missing from the celebration, and there are references to them.

Another concern when an author creates a character as compelling as Rothgar is that his heroine won’t prove to be a fit mate. Diana lack’s Rothgar’s sophistication, but she is a worthy match for him in her courage and her sense of responsibility. Perhaps most significant is her understanding of how power isolates and her determination to break through Rothgar’s carefully constructed guards to the heart and soul of the man.

Then there is Rothgar himself. The reader is prepared for his physical and mental prowess, for his near omniscience, for his brilliance in execution of his plans, for all the qualities that have made him such a large presence in the first four books of the series. But in his own book, Beverley moves beyond the larger-than-life Eminence Noir to reveal the essential loneliness and sorrow that make up the character of this man whose life has been shadowed since early childhood by the heinous action of his mother and who, at the age of 19, inherited his title with all its responsibilities, the well-being of his younger half-siblings paramount among them. Early in Devilish, Bryght thinks of Rothgar as “fascinating and admirable, but at times . . . scarcely human.”  What Beverley does in this fifth book is to render Rothgar human, to show his fears and frustrations, to reveal a man vulnerable to love. The result is an even more complex character.

All these strengths and I haven’t even touched upon Beverley usual splendid use of historical detail to enrich the dimensions of her story nor her skillful use of automatons to reveal Rothgar’s need for control and Diana’s painful relationship with her father. The heat level of the book is moderate, but the love scenes are both sensual and tender. Beverley leaves no doubt that Rothgar and Diana are a perfect match in all areas of their lives.

Since my first reading of Devilish, I have read it several times as part of the continuing series of books set in the Malloren world. I have been delighted to see further evidence of Rothgar’s humanity in subsequent books. Just the thought of Rothgar involved in a secret baby plot still makes me smile. I started reading Jo Beverley with her first book, and I have continued to read and reread her over more than two decades now. Devilish remains one of my top three favorites among her nearly forty books. I’m looking forward to visiting the Malloren world again in February 2012 when the twelfth book in the series, A Scandalous Countess, is released.

Do you have former Rita winners among your all-time favorites? Which of your favorites from ten or more years ago stand up best after a decade or more of reading?