Bonus Review: Kisses, She Wrote

Kisses, She Wrote

By Katharine Ashe

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: 

December 3, 2013

Charles Camlann Westfall, the Earl of Bedwyr copes with a painful past by living life on the surface. Incredibly handsome, with more than his fair share of charm, he has found this strategy a viable way of life as he moves lightly through ballrooms and gambling dens and through the hearts and bedrooms of willing widows and dissatisfied wives. Only a few close friends realize that there is more to Cam than the witty charmer the ton knows. For a variety of reasons, Cam finds it convenient to make an extended stay at the Brittany chateau that belongs to his cousin Luc, the Comte de Rallis. Life is much quieter there than in Cam’s usual haunts such as London and Paris. It is restlessness that sets him looking for a deck of cards. Instead, he finds a diary belonging to Jacqueline, Princess of Sensaire. He can’t resist reading a few pages, and once he begins, forgetting all notions of honor, he continues, uncomfortable and intrigued to discover that he figures prominently in the princess’s thoughts.

Jacqueline may be a princess by birth, but she has little in common with princesses of fairy tale fame. She is plain of face rather than beautiful and straight in body lines rather than curvy. Shy and bookish, she also lacks the social skills expected of a princess. There is no villainous stepmother in her life, just a determined mother who has always found Jacqueline less than satisfactory as a daughter and a princess. Jacqueline knows that regardless of her lack of feminine allure and accomplishments, she will soon be wed to an English lord of her brother’s choosing. Reiner loves his sister, and Jacqueline is confident that he will choose a kind husband for her, but he also expects the alliance to be one that will benefit Sensaire. And he has warned Jacqueline that while the Earl of Bedwyr may be a friend of the Prince of Sensaire, he is not husband material for the princess. But Cam, who is her opposite in every way, captures Jacqueline’s heart and imagination. He may have no place in her life, but he has a central role in her fantasies, the ones she records in her diary.

As Cam becomes more and more captivated by Jacqueline’s diary, he makes a point of getting to know Jacqueline the woman and comes to appreciate her intelligence and her honesty. A friendship of sorts develops between the two. When the Brittany party moves to London, Cam finds himself seeking out both Jacqueline and her diary, which is growing more and more filled with sensual details of her fantasies. Jacqueline’s fantasies feed Cam’s own, and they inspire him to capture the story in verse form. Meanwhile, his great-aunt offers him the one thing from his past that he associates with happiness. All he has to do to claim it as his own is marry the coldly proper beauty that his aunt has chosen for him. Separate paths are clearly marked for Cam and Jacqueline, but their fascination and understanding of one another deepens with every encounter. Is the shared world their imaginations create for them individually strong enough to withstand the expectations of reason and reality?

This is a near perfect novella. Part of Ashe’s Prince Catchers series, it can be read as a standalone but will be especially appreciated by readers who liked Cam and Jacqueline in I Married the Duke. Novellas can seem padded as if an author is stretching a slim story to fit the form. I find more often, the story seems too large for the form, leaving the reader, no matter how engaging the characters, longing for more chapters to give a satisfying conclusion. Ashe avoids both these traps. Her novella feels fully developed, and it offers readers a wonderful, sigh-worthy conclusion. Even the title and the cover fit!

Kisses, She Wrote is also a deeply romantic story. I loved the use Ashe makes of the diary and the fact that the seductive hero, who is articulate and graceful in speech, is himself seduced by the power of the written words of the heroine, who can find speech awkward. And I loved that the thread involving the power of the written word is introduced in the beginning and runs through to the end.

I’m adding this to my list of favorite novellas. If you are looking for a quick read with a Christmas setting that features likeable, interesting characters and a sweet, sensual romance with a different twist, you can’t do better than this one. I highly recommend it.

I was thrilled when Cam was revealed as a poet. I’ve known some sexy poets, and I think it’s only just that one gets his day in romance fiction’s hero spotlight. How do you feel about poets as heroes?

Tuesday Review: I Married the Duke

Note: I'm barely squeaking under the wire to make this a Tuesday Review. I spent a good portion of today in the emergency room and forgot that this had not been posted. My apologies for the tardiness.

I Married the Duke

By Katharine Ashe

Publisher: Avon

Release Date: August 27, 2013

The Caulfield sisters were sent to England by their mother when they were very young, too young to have more than sketchy memories of their mother. When the ship taking them to England sinks, they are the only survivors. They know nothing about their father, and, with no relatives to claim them, they are sent to an orphanage and later adopted by a widowed clergyman. All the girls have from their former lives is a valuable ruby ring. According to a gypsy seer, the ring holds the key to their father’s identity, an identity that will be revealed only when one of the three sisters marries a prince.

The middle sister Arabella takes the gypsy’s message to heart. Thirteen years later, after having worked several years as a finishing governess and having established a reputation as being particularly skilled at preparing young ladies for their debuts and seeing them through their first season, Arabella is on her way to Saint-Nazaire in France where she is to prepare the younger sister of the Prince of Sensaire for her debut in London. Arabella hopes that she will be able to attract the Prince’s attention and through him fulfill the prophecy. It’s not impossible; after all, she has been fighting off the attention of male employers throughout her career. But when she misses her ship, her most pressing need is to get to her destination by September 1 when her employment is supposed to begin. Her best hope of doing this is securing a place on board the ship commanded by Captain Andrew.

Lucian Westfall, former commander of HMS Victory, Comte de Rallis, and heir apparent to the Duchy of Lycombe, for the past year has been known to many simply as Captain Andrew of the merchant brigantine Retribution. He has the boldness of a pirate, an effect intensified by the eye patch he wears, and the arrogance of a lord. He is not at all amenable to the request for passage on his ship from the sharp-tongued young woman he identified as a schoolteacher at first sight. His first response is a resounding no, but she is persistent. Her reason for missing her ship and the fact that her destination is a castle that belongs to him persuade Luc to consent to accept her as a passage.

What follows is a romantic adventure that encompasses a variety of romance tropes, including shipboard romance, marriage of convenience, and secrets—dangerous and deadly. More than once their barely cheat death. Arabella and Luc are all wrong for each other. She cannot lose her chance with a prince when it is finally within her grasp. She believes this is the only way to find out who she is and the only route to securing her sisters’ happiness. He needs a blue-blooded wife to provide the heir he is desperate for in case he does become the Duke of Lycombe. For the sake of his beloved brother and all the hundreds of people dependent upon the duchy, he must have an heir. It is the only way to finally defeat the Reverend Absalom Fletcher, his mad, abusive, hypocritical guardian. However, reason proves no match for the irresistible, sizzling attraction between the governess and the piratical lord. But before they can attain an HEA, they must learn to trust one another and work together to defeat the powerful enemy who wants Luc dead.

I Married the Duke is the first book in Ashe’s new Prince Catchers series, and the story of the mysterious ring and the identity of the three orphan sisters is tantalizing bait for series addicts. I knew as soon as I read the prologue that I was fairly caught and would not be satisfied until I turned the final page of the third book.

Arabella and Luc are each interesting characters in their own right, and their banter, their chemistry, and the healing they offer each other make them a couple guaranteed to appeal to a romance lover’s heart. If Arabella seems rather too rash at times and Luc seems foolishly reluctant to share truths with her, these are forgivable flaws in a compelling story with complex characters and more than one moment of heart-stopping suspense. I think Ashe has a winner!

If you like your romance with plenty of action, lots of heat, and characters, both primary and secondary, who capture your interest and affection, I recommend this book.

I love quiet romance novels, but I also like to mix them up sometimes with romances high in action. What’s your preference?