I read 23 novels in 2021. As in 2019 and 2020, most (though not all) of the books that I read this year were romance novels.
The books are listed below in the order in which they were first published, from oldest to newest. I have also included my Goodreads reviews and ratings for each novel, as well as the days that it took me to read them. (Some of my Goodreads reviews may have been revised and expanded for this blog.) I only read print books (no e-books), generally mass-market paperbacks. The covers shown are scans I made of my own copies of the editions that I read. (Right-click the images and open them in a new tab or window to view them at super-size.)
A note about the ratings: Goodreads uses a 5-star rating system, with 5 stars being for the best books, 1 star being for the worst. Goodreads doesn't allow half stars, but I have used them here for this blog. Here is what I intend each star to indicate:
5 stars = I absolutely loved it, highly recommended
4 stars = very enjoyable, better than average
3 stars = generally enjoyable
2 stars = didn't enjoy it much, had many problems with it
1 star = I hated it (Thankfully I've not yet given a book only one star.)
BOOKS I READ IN 2021:
Rating: 3 stars
Read: June 30-July 1, 2021
Review: This story originally appeared in the August 1944 issue of the Texas Rangers pulp magazine. This Popular Library paperback edition was published in April 1972. The novel stars Jim Hatfield, a character who appeared in many western novels under the house byline Jackson Cole; this particular book was written by Tom Curry. It's an enjoyable, fast-moving western about a group of Indians attacking local ranches, killing a few of the men during their raids. The ranchers suspect the local peaceful Lipan tribe, who live on a nearby reservation located on arid land, of being responsible for the attacks. The ranchers go to the local Indian agent Paul Fuller to ask the tribe to turn over the Indians who committed the attacks, but the Lipan chief claims no knowledge of his people being involved. When ranger Jim Hatfield arrives in town, the ranchers are ready to drive the Indians from the reservation by force, but Jim persuades them to give him three days to investigate the matter in order to find the guilty culprit. Hatfield soon discovers that there is more going on here than meets the eye.
While the story does have some typical western clichés, such as the corrupt Indian agent and the obligatory bar fight, and some unbelievable aspects (such as the escapes from certain death, and the bad warlike Indians obediently following the orders of their villainous white leaders), I enjoyed the story. It's a quick read, like the prose equivalent of an old-time cowboy movie.
Rating: 4 stars
Read: June 30-July 1, 2021
Review: This book was originally published in 1966 under the title Nurse's Dilemma; my copy was published circa 1976 by Magnum/Prestige Books. (The cover illustration has a 1976 date on it, perhaps indicating the year of publication.) There are two love stories going on in this book. The doctor of the title is Gerry Larrimore, who left the southern town of Oakhaven for two years where he had been engaged to nurse Ivy Carter. But Ivy is surprised to learn upon Gerry's return that he has since gotten married to Denise, who is more of a northern city socialite that is reluctant to live in Oakhaven. This is good news for another young doctor at the hospital, Murray Blake, who has been carrying a torch for Ivy and now hopes to have a chance with her. Despite some bumps along the way, everyone gets their HEA (happily ever after).
I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would. I assumed it would be a simple 3-star novel at best, but with Chapter Four the story became a lot more interesting, as the focus shifted to Denise and the arrival of a longtime male friend named Win, a "professional house guest," who asks to stay at Denise and Gerry's home for two weeks. Unfortunately Win vanishes from the story after this chapter, but it sets the tone for the rest of the scenes involving Denise where she shows herself to be too selfish and ambitious to be a suffering "Doctor's Wife" (as the title says, a more suitable title than the original, Nurse's Dilemma). There were some scenes that had such amusing dialogue that I found myself reading the words aloud to savor the sound of them.
As in another Gaddis story that I'd read before, named African-American characters appear here in servant roles, including one who quits on the spot when Denise (prompted by Win) informs her that she will be replaced in a week's time. There is also a mention that one of the hospital's patients (who complains about how ugly her newborn looks) has a husband who has been "shipped out to Viet Nam," possibly one of the earliest mentions of the Vietnam War in a romance novel. In another of the hospital subplots, a mother claims that her child suffered his injuries in an accidental fall, but the doctors suspect that he is the victim of child abuse. The mother eventually confesses the abuse to Dr. Larrimore, but apparently there is no requirement that child protective services be informed; thankfully the father learns the truth, divorces the mother and obtains custody of the child.
Had this novel focused mainly on Denise and Gerald's story, and had Win stick around longer than one chapter, I might have felt forced to give the book a 5-star rating due to the enjoyment I had reading it. However, the parts involving Ivy and Murray were not as engaging, and their story forms the other half of the book. Ivy was an okay heroine, but her life seemed to revolve around her long hours at the hospital, not allowing for much characterization beyond that role. And Murray's constant whining about how he wished Ivy would fall in love with him (which she eventually does) made him a less appealing "hero" than Gerald. Still, this was a fun book overall and I recommend it.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: November 20-December 8, 2021
Review: This was Candlelight Romance #188, published by Dell in January 1976; however it was originally published in the U.K. in 1973 by Robert Hale & Co. Although Dell's Candlelight line primarily published American authors in the 1970s, novels from the U.K. were also sometimes reprinted, as in this case. This happens to be one of the very first romance novels that I ever bought (in a huge lot of over 1,200 books), when I first began buying the genre in April 2018. Perhaps more importantly, it was one of the few that I kept from my initial purchases, since I had not planned on keeping or collecting any of them. But I immediately became fascinated by the Candlelight line, which on the surface resembled the Harlequin Romance line, but offered a wider variety of subcategories (this novel, for example, is a historical romance that takes place in 1817). I had read the first few pages in 2018 and was intrigued by the setting (mistakenly assuming it would take place aboard a ship, since that is how the story begins), but never got around to reading the book until now. This was (approximately) the 100th romance novel that I ever read, so to mark the occasion I thought it would be appropriate for my 100th book to be one that had started me off.
The description on the back of the book implies that Richard Roxton is the hero of the book, and Anne Brandon (a woman he met in Australia during his time as a convict) is the heroine. But the book begins with Richard's cousin Philip York as he seeks out Richard in Australia to let him know that he has been found not guilty and to send him back home. Philip meets Anne (called Taroola) there (before the reader meets Richard), and it appears that it would be more logical for Philip to be the hero of the novel, and Anne his love interest, since Richard turns out to be an unlikable person who is only using Anne and doesn't really care about her. The story takes a turn when Richard and Philip return home to England (without Anne) as the focus switches more to Richard and a former lover, Esther Caldecott. Esther informs Richard that they have a son, a 3 year old brat named Sebastian, but Richard wants nothing to do with either of them. Richard becomes a somewhat more sympathetic character, however, when Esther blackmails him, coercing him to marry her.
For much of the novel, Anne/Taroola is still in love with Richard, and travels to England to be with him after the death of her father. Upon learning that he is now married (Richard lies to her about the reason), she stays with Philip who eventually falls in love with her. Anne, however, has eyes only for Richard and doesn't regard Philip in a romantic way, even after he kisses her and she notices how tender his kiss was compared to Richard's. Adding to the irony, Philip thinks highly of Esther, believing her lies, while everyone else in the novel is suspicious of her. Esther plans to snare Philip into marriage after destroying Richard and taking his property.
By the end of the book, things are set right, and it is clear that Philip and Anne are indeed the story's hero and heroine (i.e., romantic couple), as hinted by the writer at the beginning, but it takes a long time for Philip and Anne to realize that fact. The heat level is low, as one would expect from a 1970s category romance novel. There is an early example of "bodice ripping" when Richard attacks Esther on page 135: "he tore savagely at the material of her dress, ripping it open to the waist," and on the next page we read: "with trembling fingers, she tried to hold the ripped bodice across her breast." One minor complaint I have is that the cover illustration doesn't really resemble the young, red-haired Anne; the model has a pearl-clutching pose and expression befitting more the scheming Esther. Overall it's a well-written and interesting tale with many likable supporting characters (that I haven't mentioned here) which I enjoyed reading.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: January 1-13, 2021
Review: This book was Candlelight Romance #164, published by Dell in March 1975. It's a romantic suspense novel, with the mystery aspect becoming more prominent in the last third of the book. There are three potential romantic interests for our heroine Christy Haven who has returned home to America after having spent a few years in Ireland being treated for the shock of her father's murder. Vere is the son of her Irish doctor, who gifts her a puppy for the trip home, although their romance seems to be a temporary one. Then there is Drew, who she meets on the plane heading back home, who appears to be the man that has captured her heart, although he spends much of the story away as he investigates her father's murder and the financial dealings of her sinister stepfather. Then there is Eddie, a neighbor that she once had a crush on, who attempts to re-establish a place for himself in her affections. At the center of the mystery is Christy's stepfather, a friend of her late father who subsequently married her mother and now keeps her medicated and confined to their home as a means of controlling her. The story is well-written, told from the first person perspective of Christy, although unfortunately some of the details of the mystery are not resolved at the end. Who was the person who took a hatchet to the silver birch trees? Who tried to have Christy's mother thrown off the balcony? The answers to those questions are not given. Despite the rushed ending, I thought the novel made for a pleasant read. The presence of the little dog, Pegasus, helped make it more enjoyable as well.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: July 2-8, 2021
Review: This was Harlequin Romance #1982, published in June 1976. The story concerns the chance encounter of our heroine Marisa with another woman (Sue) at an airport in London. Marisa is bound for Corsica in order to investigate the whereabouts of her brother. Sue is also headed there, to help take care of the child (Fiona) of her sister (Leonie), but Sue has suddenly decided to stay in London and asks Marisa to let Blake (the man scheduled to pick Sue up at the airport) know that she decided not to go after all. So, Marisa informs Blake but then is offered a ride into town by him, and ultimately ends up staying at the villa taking care of Fiona while in her free time asking questions in town about her brother. Eventually this will all lead to a romance between Marisa and Blake, but there are a lot of other characters and various subplots as well. In fact, when the minor character Roger is reintroduced on page 27, I'd forgotten who he was, and had to go turning back pages until I recalled his introduction on page 18. It reminded me of reading a D. E. Stevenson novel that I'd read last year, with its attention to detail, although with more of a proper romance-genre outline and ending. For example, I wondered at one point if Marisa might end up with Leonie's husband Jon, but the story clearly appeared to be about Marisa and Blake's growing love for each other, so I was able to dismiss that possibility.
When I first saw the title, I mistakenly thought "maquis" referred to a person (like "marquis," a term often found in historicals that refers to a nobleman). In fact, as Merriam-Webster says, the word refers to "thick scrubby evergreen underbrush of Mediterranean shores." Their scent is mentioned a couple times during the novel, most notably when the villa's caretaker Jean tells Marisa that he left Paris behind in order to remain in Corsica. "I would not exchange the scent of the maquis for the boulevards now," he says (on page 128). This detail reinforces the idea of the summer spent here as being a magical one, unique and memorable. Like many Harlequin romance novels of the time, it presents an exotic location in a comforting and attractive way -- a form of escape for readers who may not have the luxury of visiting such places or living a life of leisure. The only "action" scene in the novel is when little Fiona falls off the side of a cliff and has to be rescued. So the pace of the novel is slow, but pleasant and enjoyable. It's only 156 pages long, but it took me a week to read because I was taking my time reading it, and I'm happy that I didn't rush through it. I was tempted to rate it 4 stars, but I'm going to say 3.5 stars, given that it's simply a well-written old-fashioned Harlequin romance from the 1970s, with all the qualities that description implies.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: April 9-20, 2021
Review: This was a paperback novelization by Ron DeChristoforo, from a screenplay by Ezra Sacks of a United Artists movie that came out in 1980. The book was published by Pocket Books in April 1980. The cover has the look of a romance novel, with the image in a circle reminiscent of the Harlequin Presents line. It's not a romance per se, although it does involve the relationship between two male best friends and the woman they both love, and it has somewhat of a happy ending for the woman and one of the men. One of the advantages the story has being in the general "fiction" category at that time (instead of the "romance" genre) is that the plot was able to include elements such as a lesbian couple and a (closed-door) threesome that would have been forbidden in a mainstream romance novel back then. It was also allowed to be explicitly political, topical, relevant and even radical, in a way that most romance novels weren't permitted to be.
Although the story begins and ends in the then-present day, most of the story takes place in the late 1960s and early 1970s as Nick and Leo are attending Harvard and encounter Radcliffe student Jessica. The turbulence of the times is reflected in the drama, as political events affect their lives (such as the draft and protests) and the characters and their friends change over time due to these events. At first I thought this story was going to be a corny baby-boomer nostalgia trip, and while there is a bit of that here and there, it nonetheless has a universal appeal which any age group can probably relate to when thinking about their younger days.
There are some melodramatic moments (like the bicycle chase that opens the novel) -- reflecting the visual, crowd-pleasing requirements of cinema -- that sometimes appear unrealistic and contrived on the printed page. I haven't seen the movie on which the novelization is based, so I can't compare the two, but I think the author did a good job of adding in little descriptive details and observations. (For example, on page 36, we read: "His was the first generation able to fantasize freely about the possibilities of roaming the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. If your parents were really getting on your case, simply whiff them off to Nebula.") So despite my initial assumptions, I ended up enjoying this book more than I thought I would. It's a thin, 204-page novel and should be a quick read for most people. I read the first 46 pages one day, and then finished the book another day (a week later). Now I'd like to see the movie, too.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: September 8-10, 2021
Review: This was either Jayne A. Krentz's first published novel (as she said in a 2004 interview) or at least one of her earliest novels. It was the second book published in Dell's Candlelight Ecstasy line, published in Dec. 1980, which introduced a higher level of sensuality (i.e., sex) than was common in category romance titles at the time (and which led to the competition following suit). My copy is a reprint edition from August 1986, released as part of the Candlelight Ecstasy Classic line, which has a different cover from the original. It's a thin book, only 187 pages, but jam-packed with drama, memorable details (like the heroine's penchant for the color yellow) and touches of humor, with nary a dull moment. It's a very well-written book, but at times a highly infuriating one.
The hero (if we can call him that) of the book is the "pirate" of the book's title, a former soldier named Simon Kendrick who rarely seems to be all that "gentle" in his manner. In an unusual touch for a contemporary romance novel, Simon is missing a hand, and instead uses a removable steel hook. Presumably Krentz added this element to give this modern-day story some of the attraction and danger that was associated with historical romance novels of the time, where the heroine might be kidnapped by a pirate (with whom she would eventually fall in love). In her later writings about the genre, Krentz has emphasized that the modern romance novel uses classic archetypes that hold universal appeal, and the pirate (like the devil or the vampire) would be such an iconic figure possessing a dark allure.
The heroine of the story is Kirsten Mallory, who is working as a reference librarian in a company called Silco based in Richland, Washington. Simon has been hired to "trim some of the fat from the organization," and Kirsten suspects that her job may be one of the things Simon decides to trim. Kirsten is 27, but already a widow, having previously been married to an ex-Marine named Jim Talbot. She left him when Jim beat her, and later he was killed in a car accident. She has been dating a coworker named Ben, who "was a man a woman never need to fear" due to his kind manners. And yet, Kirsten finds the easygoing Ben to be too soft for her taste, and wishes she was able to find a man in "the middle" -- not as soft as Ben, but not as rough as Jim.
Simon doesn't fit the bill, it appears, because of his forceful manner, inserting himself into her private life (beginning with intruding on her date with Ben) and inviting himself into her apartment to stay the night after she discovers the place has been ransacked in her absence. Throughout the novel, Simon continues to give orders to Kirsten about what she can or can't do, expecting his demands to be obeyed, and uses his large physical size to push her around when she resists his commands. His familiarity eventually culminates in his demand that they be married, even though they have only known each other for a week.
I was reminded of an Anne Stuart novel that I read a couple years ago, Chain of Love (from 1983), that also had a large arrogant 'hero' who ordered the heroine around so much that a few times I was hoping she'd pull out a gun and shoot the jerk. In my review of that book, I had written: "As I got to the last few chapters, I wondered how that obligatory happy resolution would come about since it seemed like if the two went their separate ways then nothing worthwhile was achieved, but if [she] submitted to [him] then she would be stuck in another potentially abusive relationship." I felt the same way here -- although I do have to say that Gentle Pirate is the better book due to how entertainingly it is written, despite the outrage I felt toward Simon's sense of entitlement in his treatment of Kirsten.
When I had gotten to page 84 of the novel, I decided to see if I could predict how the plot would be resolved. Here's what I wrote to myself at that point: "It seems to me that the only way that the jerk 'hero' Simon can be satisfyingly redeemed is if he has been putting up a fake front of arrogance this entire time in order to protect the heroine. For example, if it turns out that Simon has secretly been assigned (perhaps by the government) to expose corruption in the company they work for, and that is why he is warning Kirsten away from going on a date with Roger Townsend, if Roger is actually the object of Simon's investigation. Or perhaps Simon is really Phil Hagood, the friend of Kirsten's late husband Jim Talbot, and so that is why Simon wanted to obtain the package that had been mailed to her. Or Hagood could be the person who trashed Kirsten's apartment, looking for the contents of the package. Perhaps the reason that Simon insisted on sleeping overnight in her apartment after it was trashed is because Simon believed her to be in danger and wanted to protect her. And that would also explain why Simon insists on moving into her apartment complex, so that he can be able to be nearby in case she is in danger. I think this would be the only way that Simon's horrible behavior could be excused and that it would make the reader want Kirsten to end up with him romantically."
Well, yes and no. I won't spoil the plot here, but Simon was not assigned to protect Kirsten, is not really Phil Hagood (who we meet later), and is not putting up a fake front. He's just as arrogant at the end of the novel as he was as the beginning, perhaps even moreso. However, he is trying to protect Kirsten, which does explain why he wants her to stay with him. No, Simon simply wants Kirsten for himself and isn't going to take no for an answer. In real life, if someone who had control over another's employment (as Simon does when it comes to Kirsten's job) and did a fraction of the things to her that Simon does in this novel, it would be a clear-cut case of harassment. In real life, Kirsten ought to have a restraining order against him.
Since this is an old-school romance novel from 1980, however, Kirsten's mind may be saying no, but her body is saying yes, and that reflects her true feelings for him, not any denials that she might make with her mouth. The reader may be objecting to Simon's actions, but Krentz provides the occasional suggestion that Kirsten is really fine with it -- and who are we to argue with the heroine, right? For example, on page 97, we read: "She wanted to tell him now that he had no business acting as if she was a schoolgirl who had overstayed her curfew but couldn't work up the courage to confront him. She sneaked a glance at his hard profile and swallowed her words. But nowhere in all the discomfort she felt was there any sensation of genuine fear such as she had known with Jim Talbot." This is intended to signal to the reader that Simon may be rough around the edges, but is not abusive, not like Jim. And yet, Jim didn't abuse Kirsten until after they were married, so this observation is hardly reassuring.
I'm the kind of person that dislikes the idea that a book -- mere words on a page -- can be deemed "harmful" -- as if adult readers need to be protected like children from bad ideas. But by the time I got to page 170, with no "grovel" from the hero in sight as he takes Kirsten, an abuse survivor, over his knee and gives her a spanking for disobeying him, I was disgusted and alarmed by the message that Krentz's words were sending to her readers: that this is okay, that this man is a hero, that he is in the right and that this is somehow true love. It's not. Perhaps some readers may find it romantic when Simon says, on page 176, "Don't you know that the reason I must have you is because you are the other half of myself?" But a closer reading of that question reveals that his "love" for her is all about himself. On page 180, Kirsten asserts her expectation of equality in their relationship: "I consider you as much my property as you consider me yours!" And yet, just prior to the spanking, on page 170, Simon tells her: "I want you to understand, sweetheart, that what I am about to do is not simply for your own good, nor is it merely a means of letting you know who will be the ranking partner in our marriage." In other words, he holds the power, not she.
Certainly most readers (one hopes) would never tolerate such patronizing behavior from their own husbands (or, in this case, an unmarried man they met a week ago), but perhaps some impressionable readers would conclude that this is how women ought to be treated by men, and that's an insidious message to receive. It's frustrating to see such a well-written book -- in some ways a modern (for 1980), funny, clever, entertaining book -- used to promote such a reactionary view. It's hard to understand that indeed a woman wrote this book, after the societal change achieved by the Women's Liberation movement of the 1970s, and that other women ate it up. Sure, it's fiction, it's a fantasy, but it's also infuriating, and just the kind of book that a feminist reader would likely fling across the room in disgust.
And when I had finished the book, I felt that Krentz had a lot of gall to subsequently be on the forefront of defending the romance novel genre from its critics, when Gentle Pirate is such an obvious example of what was wrong and unenlightened about the genre at the time. Its values are deranged, and there's really no convincing defense of it, at least from a moral point of view. I'm rating it 3 stars, although it would have rated higher had the hero been likable, or at least made to grovel or change his behavior at the end. There was plenty for me to like about this book (including a mention of Nick Carter [Killmaster] near the end!) but a lot to dislike about its outdated view of real love.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: December 29-30, 2021
Review: This book was Second Chance at Love #29 (February 1982), published by Berkley/Jove, when founding editor Carolyn Nichols still helmed the line. "Jasmine Craig" was a pen-name of Jasmine Cresswell, a British-born author who has lived in various countries including the United States. Much of the novel reflects this international outlook: the heroine Andrea is an American, the daughter of a wealthy businessman, who has spent the past three years living in poverty in a Mediterranean village. She had gone there to marry a man named Raphael who, it turns out, was only interested in her money. Unfortunately for Raphael, Andrea's father disowned her because of his disapproval of the marriage, so no money would be forthcoming, and the abusive Raphael was subsequently killed in a car accident. When the novel opens, the widowed Andrea is seeking a job as a servant to Matthew Carleton, a famous British TV personality, also recently widowed, who has arrived at the little island to take care of some business involving his late wife's ownership of property there. Matthew has an eleven year old daughter named Julietta whom Andrea befriends during her servant duties, soon bringing Andrea into regular contact with Matthew.
In the end, Matthew and Andrea are married and return to his home in London, under the pretense that theirs is a marriage of convenience, so that Andrea can be a mother-figure for Julietta. Of course the married couple is actually in love, but Andrea's previous unhappy marriage has made it difficult to accept Matthew's attempts at showing physical affection and she also suspects that he, too, has married her for her father's money. One of the drawbacks to the novel is that it is filled with unpleasant supporting characters who scheme and lie to try and poison the relationship of the couple. On the other hand, this does give the novel a page-turning momentum. I found the writing style to be so engaging that I was sucked in from the very first page. The international setting also gives the story an "exotic" feel, reminiscent of the travelogue-ish Harlequin romances of the period. Overall I enjoyed the novel; it was a solid read that held my interest.
Rating: 2.5 stars
Read: September 2-3, 2021
Review: This was a "Young Adult/Suspense" novel (as it says on the spine) published by Fawcett Juniper (Fawcett's YA imprint) in May 1989, although the book has a 1987 copyright date. It's a thin book, only 136 pages, and the plot is pretty thin, too -- filled out by a lot of padding and repetition in the text. The novel is split into three parts, with a total of 40 chapters, although some chapters are only a page long. In the first part of the book, an 18 year old lifeguard named Paul meets a young woman around his age named Jody. There is a sense of impending doom about their brief encounters, as Paul senses that their relationship can't last. (The book is told from the omniscient third person perspective, but Paul's thoughts and POV are meshed within it.) By the end of Part One, Jody has drowned and Paul failed to save her, perhaps because he was smoking a joint at the time, which he shouldn't have been doing. Part Two deals with Paul's guilt over Jody's death and her apparent return from the grave to torment him. By the last page of Part Two (page 109 of the book), I was able to guess the identity of the culprit. Part Three of the book has the big reveal, the return of an earlier character, and wraps things up. Unfortunately the ending is not quite as satisfying as it could have been, leaving some unanswered questions. It's an easy read, with a couple spooky parts, but not as spooky or scary as the cover would suggest. I rate it only 2.5 stars, mainly due to the repetitive, dialogue-heavy, padded-out writing style. If more stuff had happened, then it probably would have rated higher with me.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: September 11-12, November 10-16, 2021
Review: This book was Harlequin Romance #3119 (April 1991) and I picked it up simply because I liked the cover, being a fan of the cover design during this period that emphasized the line's logo at the top. I started reading it in September, got around 24 pages in, and then had to set it aside due to some other work that needed to be done. I didn't attempt reading another novel for two months because of lack of time, but I came back to this book in November and was able to pick up where I left off without having to reread it from the beginning, since it was still fresh in my mind (which speaks to the book's quality, I think). The book is only 189 pages long, but it still took me a long time to finish, despite the fact that I generally enjoyed it.
The story is about a young woman named Victoria ("Torey") who moves to Iowa from California to inherit a house from her late aunt Violet. Torey is a commercial artist wanting to become a cartoonist, on the verge of signing a deal with a newspaper syndicate for her own comic strip, and intends to live in the inherited house to avoid the high cost of rent in LA. When she arrives, however, she discovers that the house is co-owned by Marsh Endicott, a man who is engaged to a woman named Kimberley (currently away in Europe). Marsh offers to buy Torey's portion of the house so that he can own it outright, but Torrey refuses. Thus, we have the "forced proximity" trope, where Marsh and Torey are forced to live together under one roof.
When Kimberley finally returns, she has plans to redecorate the house in a manner that Torey finds distasteful. It isn't until around page 78 that there's a hint of any romantic interest between Torey and Marsh, but it gradually grows stronger from there. We also get what I call the "HEA fake-out" -- where the romantic couple's relationship totally falls apart in the next-to-last chapter, and somehow is restored (to provide the obligatory happy ending) in the final pages of the book.
Romance readers will sometimes compare romance novels to mystery novels in the sense that one knows the mystery will be revealed or solved at the end, just like a romance novel is certain to end with a happy ending together (HEA) for the hero and heroine. A mystery novel may leave clues for the reader along the way, in order to solve the mystery ahead of the detective (if they are able). With this romance novel, the mystery for me in the beginning was how the hero and heroine would end up together romantically in a satisfactory and credible way. The two initially showed no romantic interest in each other, and he was engaged to be married to someone else anyway. Would our heroine be a "home-wrecker," stealing another woman's man? That didn't seem likely given that the reader is supposed to like her, not hate her. The only possible fix for this problem would be for Kimberley to prove herself unsuitable or unworthy of Marsh after all, opening the door for Torey to step in, and that's what ultimately happens here. If Torey and Marsh had really had an "affair" (as the book's title implies), the reader would not have been rooting for them. So the book is written to make their affair an acceptable one to the reader.
Speaking of mystery novels, often such stories will end with the detective explaining at some length about how all the various clues fit together. This romance novel has a similar dialogue at the end, where Marsh finally confesses to Torey that he has loved her all along. Unfortunately, the book is like a throwback to the old style Harlequins in that regard, where the hero's true feelings are kept from the heroine -- and the reader -- until the very last chapter, when he finally reveals that he loves her. It's too bad, because in most other respects this novel felt a little more modern and fresh than that, with Torrey being an artistic woman with her own promising career and a snarky sense of humor. I think the first half of the book was more entertaining than the second half, but there were high points in that last half as well, particularly the scene where Marsh and Torey finally make love (marred only by Marsh's mention of rape -- Torey convinces him that it won't be rape because she is willing). The book was well-written throughout, at times reminding me of a writer like Nora Roberts or Jayne Krentz. Occasionally I thought I would rate this book 3.5 stars, but I'm going to give it a solid 3 (out of 5) stars since it did drag a bit at the end.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: November 17-19, 2021
Review: This was a thin 170-page traditional Regency romance novel, published by Fawcett in August 1993. The story concerns two young people whose scheming parents trick them into getting married, due to their mistaken belief that the other party is wealthy. In fact, both the heroine Fanny and the hero Charles are poor. Each had been shown a portrait of another person as their intended spouse, and it was only on their wedding day that they learned the truth. They decide to go to London pretending to be wealthy cousins, in order to enter society and meet an eligible person with money that they can marry instead. But Charles meets and falls in love with the woman whose picture he had earlier thought to be Fanny (before he married her) and Fanny falls in love with the man whose picture she had thought to be Charles. But the prospective mates that they had seen in the portraits turn out to be unpleasant people, and eventually Charles and Fanny realize that the person they loved all the time was each other -- the person they were already married to!
I'd not read a novel by Marion Chesney before, so I don't know if all her books are like this or not, but the plot had a lot of coincidences in it. I'll be interested in reading another Chesney novel in the future, to see how it compares to this one. I could imagine Chesney writing an outline showing where all of the characters' movements would intersect, and then she would simply have her prose follow that predetermined outline. You could say that the characters were like chess pieces, but I don't want to leave the impression that they had no personality. It was a fun, lively read which I enjoyed. I don't know what the title refers to exactly, unless to the pursuit of wealth that runs throughout the story.
Rating: 5 stars
Read: July 8-23, 2021
Review: This historical romance novel was published by Zebra Books in December 1994. The majority of the novel takes place in 1802, following the fiery romance between the pirate captain Kit Saber (actually the son of a duke) and a young woman named Angela that he took aboard his ship instead of leaving her to die aboard another ship he and his pirate crew had raided. Angela and her servant Emily had been on their way towards New Orleans in order for her to meet a man she intends to marry (against the wishes of her father). Saber takes her there where she learns that the man she thought she loved is not what he seemed. Saber, too, is not what he seems, being a moral and intelligent (educated at Oxford) man despite his piracy, and much of his crew turn out to be sensitive and articulate, too, despite their notorious reputation. Both Saber and Angela are stubborn, impulsive, strong-willed individuals, reluctant to talk honestly with one another, which leads to mistaken assumptions about their true feelings. Eventually Angela and Emily are taken back home to London, and we subsequently see Kit Saber in his societal role as the son of the duke. Angela and Kit's romance seemed to have more of a chance on the pirate ship than it does among the ton. This is one of those stories where the couple finally gets their happy ending in the last ten pages of the book, as all of their problems are hastily resolved.
Although the description above implies that I found the book unrealistic, that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it. Quite the contrary, I loved it! I found myself enjoying the book throughout its 444 pages, although admittedly I think the part of the book before they return to London (which happens on page 345) was more enjoyable. Although the last 100 pages do wrap up a subplot involving Kit's search for a mysterious woman named Vivian (alluded to earlier in the book), Kit and Angela are separated for much of those last 100 pages, or else arguing and suspicious of each other when they aren't. If the book had skipped ahead from page 344 to the epilogue (pgs. 440-444) I probably would have liked it just as much. Admittedly, however, the London-set section does flesh out more of Kit's history -- not that we really needed to know about it. Another misstep may be the lack of a love story for the only Black supporting character, Kit's best friend Turk. He is presented as a wise and articulate person, but demonstrates no interest in the opposite sex until the epilogue, with an unnamed "lovely native girl."
So, it's not a perfect book by any means, but I'm still giving it 5 stars because I had so much fun reading it, even the parts that contained aspects that seemed unrealistic or too coincidental. It's about a pirate, after all, and when I read about pirates, I want and expect it to be a thrilling adventure, as this novel was, not grimly "realistic."
Rating: 4.5 stars
Read: March 25-April 8, 2021
Review: This was the author's second novel, published as part of Pinnacle Books' Arabesque romance line in November 1996. (The first was Eternity, published the year before, and also for Arabesque.) In a sense, Abandon could be considered a "historical" (albeit one of recent vintage) since it takes place in 1969-72, when the Black Power movement was at the height of its influence. (Unfortunately the book's cover looks like any other 1990s Arabesque novel; an opportunity was missed to evoke that era with a retro cover reflecting the culture and fashion of that earlier time.) The story begins in 1969 on the campus of UCLA where our heroine, Denise Davis, is a student. Denise is drawn to the Black Panther Party, along with her best friend Shelly, due to the racism they encounter at the majority-white school and the rhetoric of a local Panther leader named Kweli (whom Shelly falls for). After a meeting on campus, two Panthers were murdered by unknown assailants -- presumably members of a rival Africa-centric and spiritual-minded group called WEB, led by Maulana Imhotep. (This appears to be a fictional organization created by the author, perhaps representing the Nation of Islam.)
The hero of the novel is Brother Jahid-Ali, the right-hand man (or "Lion") of the older Imhotep. A couple years later, in 1971, Denise encounters Brother Jahid-Ali again at a protest, and having been observed speaking with this suspected enemy, she is suspended from the Panthers for 30 days. During this suspension, Denise and Brother Jahid-Ali secretly meet and begin a romance. Brother Jahid-Ali has become disillusioned with WEB and fears that "Maulana Imhotep might not let him live if he left" (p. 110) -- reminiscent of Malcom X's break with Elijah Muhammad. Denise, however, firmly believes in the righteousness of her work in the BPP, and wants to participate in Panther leadership despite resistance from Kweli. Eventually things get increasingly dangerous for the two secret lovers as they don't know who they can trust or where to turn. The last chapter of the book raises the stakes as it looks like Denise will miss her chance to rendezvous with her man for the final time. I want to warn potential readers that Denise and Brother Jahid-Ali do get their HEA, but not everyone in the story will -- even those who also deserve that happiness. I do wish the book had been longer, so that we could have seen what happened to Denise and Brother Jahid-Ali afterwards, perhaps with an epilogue showing them together in the 1990s.
This is a revolutionary book about revolutionary times. It's a real pity that the author didn't continue to write novels after this one. I can't recall a romance-novel heroine who has embraced radical politics as does Denise, fighting to "wage change in unjust, racist America" (p. 158). Denise thoughtfully searches for the best methods to achieve her goal of a just society. "Initially, she embraced Marxism, only to learn that his doctrine regarding the proletariat did not include the slaves or the abject poor. ... While she agreed that the triangular structure of capitalism was the root of classism, she also believed that if the masses rose up together, then the ten percent at the top who controlled the ninety percent at the bottom would cease to exist. ... She had much to consider in planning a trip to a communist or socialist country. Once she arrived, the FBI and CIA would resume their surveillance of her activities" (p. 181-182).
I found it refreshing and exciting to read a romance novel that was so openly political, that engaged so strongly on an intellectual and moral level rather than simply an emotional one. The novel also seemed to be personal in some respects; the author, like Denise, had been a student at UCLA, and those aspects of the story were perhaps informed by her experience there, or from talking with those who were there in the 1960s. "The white students always acted like they owned the school. This type of behavior infuriated her [Denise]" (p. 42). "You know, the privilege is absolutely amazing," Denise tells Shelly (p. 43). "The privilege?" Shelly asks. Denise answers: "Yeah, the privilege that white is right." Even within the Black Power movement, however, Denise found another kind of privilege existed there. "I see the enemy of sexism and patriarchal domination rampant coming from within and without the party," she tells Kweli (p. 165) when he questions her introduction of "a feminist perspective on race relations" to her students' curriculum (p. 163).
Did I enjoy reading this novel? As the characters in the book would say, "Right on!" There were a couple moments that seemed a little funny, like when Denise gives herself a Black Power raised-fist salute in the mirror to strengthen her resolve -- funny only because the fashion and slang of that time seem to us now a bit quaint and simplistic. All of the main characters are young people in their 20's, so it's easy to look upon their idealism as naive, and roll one's eyes at their belief that a revolution was just around the corner. But the author really made the period come alive, with a lot of Black cultural references (including a few that I had to Google, such as activist H. Rap Brown and Super Fly actor Ron O' Neal). I appreciated that the author was willing to take the story into political and even literary areas (with the poetry readings) that authors of commercial fiction might be reluctant to explore.
It's a bit difficult to rate this novel because it was so unique. It definitely never fell below four stars for me, and frequently reached higher, especially in the last few chapters as the vice tightened around Denise and Brother Jahid-Ali. I'm going to say that overall it rates 4.5 (out of 5) stars for me, mainly because it was such an original and absorbing novel that will be impossible to forget.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: July 25-September 1, 2021
Review: This historical romance novel was published by Berkley in September 1998. The novel takes place in 1815, shortly before Napoleon's fall at Waterloo. The hero of the novel is Nigel, Marquess of Rivaulx, who works as a spy for England. He attempts to uncover who has been sending military secrets to the French and suspects that it is a man named Donnington, who has recently acquired an exotic mistress from India named Frances. She is the heroine of the novel, and actually a young English woman who spent "four years in the harem of a maharaja in India, and been trained in the notorious ways of the Ganika, the professional courtesan" (page 20). Donnington loses badly to Nigel at their "gaming hell," and to pay the cost, it is agreed that Nigel will hold a wild party (orgy) at Donnington's home and allowed to take one item there -- that being Frances. But during the night, Donnington is murdered and Nigel is poisoned, and so the mystery deepens.
Read: July 25-September 1, 2021
Review: This historical romance novel was published by Berkley in September 1998. The novel takes place in 1815, shortly before Napoleon's fall at Waterloo. The hero of the novel is Nigel, Marquess of Rivaulx, who works as a spy for England. He attempts to uncover who has been sending military secrets to the French and suspects that it is a man named Donnington, who has recently acquired an exotic mistress from India named Frances. She is the heroine of the novel, and actually a young English woman who spent "four years in the harem of a maharaja in India, and been trained in the notorious ways of the Ganika, the professional courtesan" (page 20). Donnington loses badly to Nigel at their "gaming hell," and to pay the cost, it is agreed that Nigel will hold a wild party (orgy) at Donnington's home and allowed to take one item there -- that being Frances. But during the night, Donnington is murdered and Nigel is poisoned, and so the mystery deepens.
I started reading this book on a whim, but kept reading it because I got sucked into the storyline -- although unfortunately it took me much longer to finish reading (over a month) than it should have. In fact, by around page 40, I considered giving up on the book, but I dislike the idea of judging a novel on a DNF ("did not finish") basis, so I soldiered on. Ordinarily a novel like this would have easily rated 4 or 5 stars for me, but the fact that it was such a long slog, not helped by the heroine's lack of appeal, made it a 3.5 star book instead. I did like the hero of the book, however, although by the end it was hard to understand why he was so devoted to the heroine, who for much of the book has a somewhat cold attitude towards him. I do think that the book was well-written, with more text devoted to actions than to thoughts (as is my preference) and enough historical detail to give the story some depth without becoming a history lesson. So, I enjoyed the book, but not as much as I wanted to, hence my 3.5 star rating.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: February 4-25, 2021
Review: This book was released in the US as Harlequin Presents #2937 (Aug. 2010). The plot concerns Abby, a popular classical pianist, who gives up her career after meeting the Count of the book's title. He leaves in the night before anything can happen between them, which causes her to feel rejected. Eventually they get together again and she becomes pregnant with his child, which prompts him to want her to return with him to his home in France -- at least until the child is born. Lack of communication, and the death of his previous wife, creates a wall between the two. The story felt like a classic, old-fashioned romance to me, with less sexual content than I expected for a Harlequin Presents. The prose itself was well-written, and I found myself admiring the author's descriptions and word choices. It was a good, solidly enjoyable read that has made me interested in reading more by the author.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: September 3-7, 2021
Review: My copy of this book is the mass-market paperback edition published by Dell in October 2020. (The hardcover came out the year before.) The novel tells the life story of an Englishwoman named Alexandra Wickham (called "Alex" throughout the novel) from age 18 (in 1934) to age 84. The first part of the book (up to page 158) deals with her experience as a spy during World War Two for a secret organization called SOE (Special Operations Executive). During the war she meets and falls in love with a young pilot named Richard, but she is not allowed to let him know (for the next 20 years) that she is a spy for the government. After the war, SOE is disbanded. Alex and Richard marry, and he becomes a diplomat assigned to live in foreign countries for around four years per country -- first to India, later Pakistan, then Hong Kong, Moscow, and finally (during the LBJ years) as the British ambassador in Washington, D.C. Alex accompanies him in all of these countries, sharing his sense of adventure during their travels. Historical events of the time are depicted, but in a somewhat superficial or simplistic way (e.g., "Nehru spoke to her of the end of British rule, and the importance of independence for India.")
MI6 had asked Alex to secretly report to them all of her activities during her stays in these countries (who she met, what they said), without telling her husband. This middle part of the book (pages 167-314) is less interesting when it comes to action and intrigue than the first part was, since it doesn't involve much in the way of espionage. (In fact, it seemed to me that some of the stuff she was reporting back to MI6 would have already been known by reading the newspapers of the time.) Only a few times during the foreign-diplomat years is there a sense of danger about her spying activities, but those concerns are quickly over with before anything bad can happen. (In fact, Alex seemed to be in more danger giving birth to her children, during this part of the book.)
The final two chapters of the novel (pages 320-347) cover the twilight years of their lives in a rapid (perhaps too rapid) fashion. For example, on page 304, we are told that Alex is 50 years old, and Richard is 58. On page 327, Alex is now 74, Richard is 82. By page 328, Richard is 90 years old, and 91 years old on the next page. On page 330, Alex is 83, and by page 341, she is 84. Those sudden jumps in their ages were a bit disorienting, even a little disturbing. There's a bittersweet feeling to the quick passage of the years, as Alex and Richard grow old, and their daughter becomes an adult and has children of her own, and they in turn become adults and get married. There's a nice line near the end where a character says about their children, "They are who they are, in spite of us, not because of us" (page 342). As the years pass, some things have a parallel in previous events, such as when Alex's daughter leaves her parents to live in another country, just as Alex had done to her own mother by being an ambassador's wife. Another irony I noticed is during her time in Moscow, the American ambassador warns them of the KGB bugging the premises, saying "It's an entire nation of people taught to spy and report on each other. It's quite sad really," (page 291), when this is in fact what Alex has herself been doing for MI6 the past several chapters.
Although this is the first book by Danielle Steel that I've ever read, I had read the opening pages of a few of her other novels before, and was turned off by the info-dump style of her writing. It reminded me of the time I took a Creative Writing class where we were encouraged to get to know our characters before writing about them and were instructed to write what clothes would be in their closet, what was their routine in the morning, what was their family history, and so forth. None of that material was intended to appear in the finished story, but was rather intended to help crystalize who these characters were in the writer's mind. It almost looked to me like Steel's info-dump writing was the result of actually using all of that irrelevant background material in the finished product -- material that the reader didn't need to know. So, her writing looked like it would be a bit of a chore to plow through.
However, I sometimes think that one may be more receptive to a work based on one's mindset, and that if I could simply accept that this was Steel's unique style, that I might be able to enjoy it more. Also, I think a reader's attitude towards a book may be influenced in comparison to the last book they read -- which, for me, was a thin YA novel written in a very simple style that had a lot of repetition of sentences for emphasis. Going from that slim book to this Steel novel made for a more welcome transition than if I had just finished reading an exciting, cleverly-written book and then started reading this one. So, perhaps my expectations were lower when I started reading Spy, and therefore was less annoyed by the writing style than I otherwise would have been.
There's no getting around the fact that Steel's writing sometimes sounds more like a Wikipedia summary of the novel's plot than the novel itself. There are several instances where a dramatic event occurs, but Steel for some reason fails to dramatize it. An example that stands out for me is on page 149, when Alex is behind enemy lines, waiting for a plane to rescue her. But the plane is shot down, killing the pilots aboard, and Alex has to flee into the night to avoid capture. Here is how Steel depicts that dramatic scene, in its entirety:
"She went to the meeting place for the plane that was due to pick her up. She was precisely on time, and heard the engines purring in the distance, and when the plane got close enough to land, an anti-aircraft gun behind her ripped through it, the plane crashed, and the pilot and gunner were killed. She disappeared into the brush and headed for some distant hills before going back to her contact."
I know that they say one shouldn't review a book that the writer didn't write, but to me the failure of Steel to effectively dramatize such a scene is a clearly missed opportunity, and demonstrates the shortcomings of her prose. Another writer might have taken several pages to depict that horrific event -- heck, they might have even used it to open the novel, to suck the reader in -- but Steel reduces it to the level of a basic plot summary. The lack of dramatization makes the writing look at times like a laundry list of events -- this happened, then this happened, and then this happened -- without presenting a reason why the reader should care about any of the things that are happening. As I was reading Spy -- and enjoying it for the most part, I must admit, because I liked the main character Alex and the 1940s time period that much of the book takes place in -- I wondered where the story was going. What was the point of all this? The arc of the plot -- the point of the story -- doesn't become apparent until the very end, when one of Alex's granddaughters ends up following in her footsteps as a spy. "A-ha!" I thought. That is why any of this matters: so we can see that her espionage career inspires her granddaughter. I wish there had been a hint of that prior to page 341, though, so that I'd have a better understanding of where the story was going, what its purpose was. Because for long stretches there in the last half of the book I was wondering what the point was, why this story was being told.
I also wondered if any of the characters that Alex had encountered as a spy behind enemy lines during World War Two would show up again after the war, or if their fates would be revealed. Perhaps someone would recognize her from her wartime spying, putting her in jeopardy of being exposed later, after the war? But nope, that doesn't happen. Those earlier events might have seemed more meaningful to the reader if they were brought back into the storyline later on. In other words, if they were shown to have mattered. So, that was another missed opportunity on Steel's part to make the story more engaging.
Another problem with Steel's writing style is how repetitive it can be. For example, on page 177, Steel informs the reader that "From now on, MI5 would be overseeing any intelligence missions domestically, and MI6 would handle anything international." Ten pages later, on page 187, Steel has a character explain: "MI5 keeps track of national security domestically, and MI6 is the foreign branch." When it comes to how much Alex is paid to be a spy, we are informed four times (by my count) that the pay is intentionally low in order not to attract attention (see pages 40, 116, 190 and 316).
The back of this paperback edition (pages 353-382) contains the first chapter of another Steel novel, All That Glitters, which suffers from some of the same problems. Steel informs the reader on page 359 that "Sam was a year older than Coco," even though Steel already told us on the previous page that "he was a year older and a grade above her." Did she think we forgot? Anyway, the first chapter of that book begins with a massive info-dump, again making me wonder why I should care about any of these people and their family histories, until Steel finally brings some drama to the story by having Coco's parents killed in a terrorist attack in Paris. I do wonder from this preview how Sam and Coco's story turns out, but perhaps not enough to have to wade through 300+ pages of info-dumping text.
Although the review above may sound harsh, I'm still rating Spy 3 (out of 5) stars. It was a quick read for me, despite the plot-summary prose style, and I enjoyed reading it more than I thought I would. (Admittedly my expectations weren't high, however.)
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: April 28-May 10, 2021
Review: This book was a Feb. 2020 release (according to the spine) in Harlequin's main Love Inspired Christian romance line. I'd not read a Christian romance novel before, so I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I suppose I had assumed it would be like a regular romance novel except with some preachiness, morally upright characters and not a hint of sex. But this book surprised me (in a good way) and I think it's a novel that any traditional romance reader would enjoy regardless of their religious beliefs. The story concerns a woman named Joy who is a single mother living on an estate that she had thought its (now-deceased) owner had left for her to live in, along with her two 3 year old girls (twins) and three foster children (boys), as well as their housekeeper. The trouble comes when Chase Asher arrives at the beginning of the book; he had been sent by his wealthy (and uncaring) father to determine the estate's value so that it can be sold. It turns out that Chase is the father of Joy's twins, which he was unaware of since he had walked out on her nearly four years ago and she never told him that she was pregnant.
It's easy to predict the outcome here, since surely they won't all get kicked out into the street. Chase and Joy will end up together, staying on the estate, and live happily ever after. So the eventual HEA is not in doubt here; the question is how that outcome will be achieved, the obstacles they must overcome to make it happen. Perhaps the thing I liked best about the story were Joy's adorable twins, and how they had different personalities. Kinsley (who wears pink clothes) is more outgoing and unafraid of Chase when he arrives at the home, while Harper (who wears purple) is more cautious and takes a longer time to trust this stranger in their midst. The small town and its inhabitants are also charmingly depicted, and make me want to read more work by the author given her talent on creating such lifelike characters.
Rating: 3 stars
Read: May 10-20, 2021
Review: This Love Inspired novel was released in August 2020 (according to the book's spine). It's only the second Love Inspired book I've read and the very first Amish romance novel I've ever read. The story concerns an Amish woman named Caroline who was recently in an accident, forcing her to get around with crutches for much of the book. (She eventually makes a full recovery.) It was in fact the opening pages of the novel, describing in detail Caroline's difficult effort to walk, that drew me into reading the book. The bishop has assigned Ben Yoder, an Amish man who killed someone in his past (and thus the object of some distrust by the peaceful Amish community), to help Caroline get to the schoolhouse (where she is the teacher) each morning as well as perform other chores for her around the property during the school day. Caroline resists Ben's interest in her, at first because of her concerns about his violent past but later (after she is convinced of his pacifistic nature) due to her inability to have children, thus denying him a family if they were to get married. During the course of the novel, a small girl and boy who were related to Caroline's family are sent to stay with them after the deaths of their parents.
It was easy to predict how this situation would eventually be resolved and everyone to receive their happily ever after. So, there wasn't much suspense here to give the narrative a page-turning drive, apart from the drama provided by a local young troublemaker whenever the Amish arrived in town. This lack of momentum made it a slow read for me (and I'm not a fast reader to begin with), despite its short length (only 217 pages). However, I did enjoy the story regardless of its slow pace, and felt that it was like reading an old-fashioned romance novel of the 1950s or 1960s, before the sexual revolution changed the landscape of the romance genre. I don't know if the Amish are as pious in real life as they are portrayed in this story (and in Amish romance novels generally), but I appreciated that emphasis on piety and propriety as a counter-balance to an absence of such considerations in most fiction today. People with traditional religious values (Amish or not) still do exist in our world, and it's good to see them represented in popular culture as well. Overall, I enjoyed reading this book.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: January 14-15, 2021
Review: This book was Harlequin Desire #2773 (Dec. 2020) and the first book in Brenda Jackson's new Westmoreland spin-off series, "Westmoreland Legacy: The Outlaws," about their relations in Alaska, the similarly-wealthy Outlaw family. I've read two previous books by the author: "The Secret Affair" (Harlequin Desire #2341, Dec. 2014), which I think is the book that first introduced Garth Outlaw (he has a cameo near the end) and "Breaking Bailey's Rules" (Harlequin Desire #2407, Nov. 2015) which was about Garth's best friend Walker falling in love with Bailey Westmoreland. In this new novel, Garth Outlaw falls in love (eventually) with the pilot of his private jet (and occasional chauffeur) Regan Fairchild, a longtime friend of the Outlaw family. I think these Westmoreland books grow on the reader the more that they read them, or at least that was the case for me. The first one I read I didn't like that much, since I found all the characters' names and histories confusing. The second one I read was more enjoyable and I found less confusing. This new book is the most enjoyable of the three that I've read and I look forward to reading the next one ("The Marriage He Demands"), which is scheduled to be released in April 2021. However, to the first-time reader, the text's frequent mentions of characters from past (and perhaps future) books in the saga may be hard to grasp.
Garth Outlaw is the hero of this novel, the oldest (38 years old) of the Outlaw brothers, and the heroine Regan is 28, although they have many similar interests despite the age difference. Both Garth and Regan have piloted planes since they were teenagers, both are good swimmers, and both are "fluent in several languages." Regan is also a gifted piano player and had been a model during her teenage years, having "appeared on the covers of a number of Alaskan teen fashion magazines." In case she seems too good to be true, it turns out that she's not the best cook, but Garth happens to be an excellent cook having learned to do so from an early age from the family's private chef. Garth wants to settle down and get married, but feels that he can never love another woman again like he loved Karen, a fellow Marine who died in Syria several years earlier. He attempts to find a mate for a loveless marriage through an online dating service, but the arrangement is cancelled due to an error and so he spends the planned two-week vacation in Santa Cruz, Spain with Regan instead (who had flown him there). During this time together, the two learn of each other's longtime romantic and sexual interest in each other. I was pleasantly surprised that this novel wasn't as steamy throughout as the other two Westmoreland novels that I'd read, giving more time to the couple's history than their sexual urges (until the last half of the book). The story is 218 pages long, and their first kiss doesn't occur until page 106, and the second kiss not until page 138. This is followed by a long and effective undressing scene that runs 5 pages, followed by a short sex scene (pages 146-148). There are a few more sex scenes in the book of around 3 pages each, so it's not as if the book doesn't eventually get there, but it takes its time getting there, letting the feelings of the couple develop first. I appreciated that the author shows that "desire" alone is not enough, that love is also needed to truly bring them happiness. I'm rating the book 3.5 stars, which means that I enjoyed it.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: January 14-March 23, 2021
Review: This 330-page historical romance novel was published by Grand Central's Forever imprint on January 12, 2021. I started reading it two days later, but it took me two months to finish because I found the story a bit slow-moving, lacking sufficient drama to give it that page-turning quality. Nonetheless, I liked it, despite its slow pace. The novel takes place in the early 1800s, as our hero Quincy returns to England from America, having run away from his unhappy childhood home, only to find that his older brothers are now dead and he is the Duke of Reigate. He has two problems with this news: one, his late brothers squandered their father's wealth so his newly-attained dukedom immediately puts him in debt, and two, he has his heart set on traveling the world and doesn't want to be tied down with the responsibilities of being a duke. Clara is the novel's heroine, who initially seems to be a rather timid and mild sort of person, selflessly caring for her younger sisters and seeing that they will become happily married and taken care of, with little thought for her own happiness. And yet this placid personality masks her bold streak (evidenced, for example, when she blurts out that she will be marrying Quincy in order to get him out of marrying someone else) as well as a dark secret about her past that haunts her, a secret that she is desperate not to be revealed since it would surely ruin her, including (she thinks) in the eyes of Quincy. Quincy and Clara pretend to be engaged to marry, all the while denying to themselves their feelings of love for each other. There is a nice twist at the end which I should have seen coming, but didn't, and an epilogue that takes place nearly a decade later.
Overall I enjoyed reading the story and found it well-written. I liked the characters and found it pleasant to be in their company as I read the pages. There is a content warning at the beginning of the book which is perhaps unnecessary, since the reason for it (a stillborn birth) is only vaguely mentioned and simply a memory of something that happened in the past. The romance's heat level is fairly low with only a few sex scenes in the second half of the book, but Clara and Quincy do seem like an ideal match personality-wise. The book is in the new "mass max" format that I love, and I will most likely buy the next book that the author puts out, which according to a blurb at the back of the book is scheduled for Summer 2021.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Read: December 16-28, 2021
Review: This book was published by Amara (an imprint of Entangled Publishing) on February 9, 2021. I started reading the first chapter on February 22, set it aside, tried again from the beginning in April, set it aside again, and then finally tried again in mid-December, determined to finish it before the year was up. I had expected to enjoy the novel based on my enjoyment of the first chapter, which I found amusing, but unfortunately I feel like I didn't enjoy the book as much as I ought to have done. The story begins with our hero (Lord Roth, also called Winter) and heroine (Isobel) already married, and the first chapter ends with the consummation of their marriage. But in the next chapter, we jump ahead three years and find that Roth had departed for London the next day, leaving his wife sitting in the family home in the country for those three years. Why? Because Roth's mother and beloved sister Prudence had died years earlier, breaking his heart and causing him to want to stay away from Isobel even though he is secretly in love/lust with her. On page 254, Roth describes his reasoning this way: "When Prue died, my heart died, too. There's nothing left of it. Not for you, not for anyone." So, Roth instead lives with his bachelor pals in London, having the reputation of a notorious rake, although in fact he is faithful to Isobel and doesn't sleep with other women. It seems pretty obvious that his behavior exists purely for "story" reasons: he has run away from Isobel so that she can pursue him and he remains faithful to her (and not a rake at all) so that the reader will deem him a person worthy of being pursued.
The book runs 369 pages, and so there are some other story threads, as well as a secondary romance. Isobel's best friend is Clarissa, who ends up falling for Roth's stuffy brother Oliver. The humor in that situation is that Clarissa has an irreverent personality (the opposite of Oliver) and eventually that irreverence rubs off on Isobel. Together the two young women exchange bawdy letters that are later anonymously published as the musings of one "Lady Darcy," which becomes a literary sensation in London for her frank and witty observations about matters of sex. A short quotation from Lady Darcy opens each of the book's chapters, which usually relates to the events of that chapter. She is presented as a liberating figure for women of this time, with Isobel's sister Astrid remarking (on page 366) "It seems you've spawned an entire generation of independent female thinkers." The contradiction in that statement is that the "independent" women are thinking "What would Lady Darcy do?" in any situation, despite Darcy not being an ideal role model from a moral standpoint. Isobel's channeling of Darcy gives her the courage to behave how she wishes in a society that frowns upon female autonomy. On page 229-230 we read: "Half of her [Isobel's] brain was excited by her boldness and the other was worried he'd see through her efforts. The racy books and whips in his collection had roused her to play the role of the provocateur. She might be innocent in body, but she had more than enough food for fantasy in her brain. In fact, her entire performance had hinged on the inner chant: What would Lady Darcy do?" But do her subsequent actions reflect her "real" self or a performance -- another disguise?
There is a feminist subtext of female empowerment throughout the book, but Isobel may be a bit too clever and powerful to be believable. When Roth is attacked by a gang in an alley in a seedy part of the city, Isobel rides to his rescue, disguised as a young man named Iz (an identity she used to talk to her husband without him knowing it was her). She then sword-fights the main villain who instigated the attack, "bringing her sword down onto the hand that held his rapier" (page 301). When he rises to attack her with his hands, she knees him in the groin. "(T)he male sex tended to view defending female helplessness as a measure of their own masculinity," the author notes. "It didn't matter that she could fight or shoot as well as any man." Following her victory, she and Roth have sex in the darkened alley where they had been attacked -- apparently having forgotten that they were desperately trying to escape from the place moments earlier. The entire scene makes for an entertaining and exciting read, but at the same time strains credibility and (again) seems to be there for audience-pleasing "story" reasons rather than realism.
Some historical romance novels emphasize history more than others, and this one is definitely the latter. I was reminded of a Tessa Dare novel that I read last year, which was light on history and heavy on humor and fun. Both Dare and Howard are writing for the modern reader, and the modern manner of the characters may be jarring or even annoying to those who take historical novels more seriously. For example, on page 212, one character says, "That's too rich for my blood" -- which immediately brought me out of the story and made me wonder if that expression existed in Regency England (or circa 1821, when the story takes place). A Google search suggests that it originated in "Late 19th Century, American English" (to quote one website). Most of the dialogue would perhaps sound more familiar to our ears today than two hundred years ago. For example, on page 316, Isobel proclaims, "The patriarchy needs a bit of shaking up and who better to do it than us?" And on page 144, Roth says of his club's scandalous activities, "Anything goes as long as it's consensual." A consent-seeking hero and patriarchy-smashing heroine seem designed to appeal to readers now, particularly ones looking for defensible characters given the genre's history of problematic leads.
I think someone could go deeper into this novel and find aspects that reveal an inherent contradiction or conflict in this scenario, i.e., the powerful heroine who "was ready to be claimed," who "loved this side of him when he took charge," who "wanted to be possessed by him. Owned by him." (page 343) But any contradiction is perhaps inherent in romance itself, and the genre reflects that. The hero, too, "was dominant by nature, but by God, the sound of his woman making her demands known in no uncertain terms made him want to kneel at her feet in supplication." (page 336) The surrender of the lovers to each other is equitable: "There would be marks left there [on his body], but she didn't care. She wanted to mark every inch of him as he was marking her." (page 344)
Despite this food for thought, the book's lack of realism and the feeling that it was pandering to modern sensibilities prevented me from enjoying it as much as I'd hoped. This should have been a 4 or 5 star book, but for me it fell short. My favorite parts were when Isobel was in disguise as Iz, talking with an unsuspecting Roth, so that she was able to see a side of him that she hadn't seen before. Perhaps I wished there were more scenes of Roth and Isobel showing genuine affection for each other rather than as rivals over a wager or lusting over each other's bodies. On the other hand, I'm not the typical reader of a book like this, and the author may have given the majority of her readers exactly what they wanted.
Rating: 4 stars
Read: April 20-22, 2021
Review: This paperback book is Harlequin Special Edition #2825 (March 2021) which was released on February 23, 2021. I saw the book on the shelf at a local retail store and thought the cover model had a cool haircut, and when I flipped through the opening pages I noticed that the text mentioned the COVID pandemic. So I decided to give it a try, even though I had not read the author's work before. The novel exceeded my expectations. The occasional mentions about mask-wearing do give the book a timely appeal, but what I liked best about the novel were the likable main characters (the hero, rancher Hunter Brand, and heroine, cancer survivor and city-girl Skyler Sinclair) and the details about life on the Montana ranch. Another thing that I liked was Skyler's love of animals, which make the story seem even sweeter. The book was well-written, although there were occasional typos (the kind that Spellcheck won't flag) such as on page 201 where Hunter "titled" (tilted) her chin, or page 164 where "The kissed deepened" (presumably the author meant "kisses"). But I blame the editor for being careless in letting those few glitches through, which were distracting from the otherwise enjoyable prose. The story's ending was not merely happy, but I would say joyous. If you like ranch romances, then this book is for you!
Rating: 4 stars
Read: May 20-June 29, 2021
Review: This novel was published by Sourcebooks Casablanca on April 27, 2021. According to its Amazon page, it's the first book in a series called Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde. (I suspected it was part of a series when the epilogue wrapped up a little too abruptly, implying more to the story, which momentarily made me wonder if my copy was missing some pages. The Goodreads entry says that the book is 352 pages, but my paperback edition is 310 pages if one includes the blank last page.) The thing that attracted me to this book, causing me to buy it, was that the spine listed its genre as "paranormal regency romance," which sounded like an intriguing hybrid. I'm a fan of traditional regency romance novels, and the addition of a paranormal element was enticing. Now having read the book, however, I feel like paranormal romance is not exactly my cup of tea -- although I did largely enjoy reading this novel.
The story concerns Felicity Templeton, whose parents are dead and who is trying to avoid being married until her 25th birthday in order to inherit her estate, according to her father's will (or so she has been told by her scheming uncle). At a party she meets our hero, Alfred, Duke of Lowell, who has the strange habit of sniffing at her. Alfred, it turns out, is a "shifter" and the Alpha of his pack of shifters -- a secret race of creatures who are able to turn into animals. In Alfred's case, he can turn into a large wolf which Felicity later names Alfie. Alfred immediately recognizes Felicity as his One True Love whom he must marry in order to preserve his race, and so he kidnaps her (a very benign and comfortable kidnapping, but a kidnapping nonetheless) and takes her to his mansion where she meets his various servants and the nearby villagers, the majority of whom are also shifters. Felicity has a love of animals, so when she encounters Alfie in the woods, she befriends him without knowing that he is Alfred. Eventually all is revealed, the marriage ceremony takes place, and the last chapter alternates between a romp in the sack and an explanation about Alfred's species and their customs.
The thing I liked best about the novel is the way it is written, with a somewhat old-fashioned style and some uncommonly used words. I also liked Felicity's somewhat innocent nature, her love of horses, and her use of the word "galoshes" instead of using God's name in vain. I also liked Alfred, since he is the kind of strong brooding hero I prefer, and the likable supporting characters. Occasionally, however, I found Felicity a bit too-good-to-be-true, someone who seemed to be taking everything too much in stride, too much in control of the situation. It's good to have a strong heroine, but she often seemed too confident and self-assured for someone of such limited experience who has been thrust into such an extraordinary situation.
I also found the shifter aspect to be a bit unsettling. Alfred says near the end of the book that some humans have been married their whole lives to shifters without knowing it, and it's implied that this secret species has powerful connections throughout human society. Alfred's wolf persona is presented like another being living within him, which struggles to take over at times. Alfred can also use his power to influence the actions of others (although this power doesn't work on Felicity, which is offered as proof that she is meant to be his mate) which raises ethical questions that are never addressed. The shifters are clearly pagan, often referring to a Goddess (instead of God), but the "galoshes" spouting Felicity seems untroubled at being yoked with a cabal of heathens. Perhaps these questions aren't dealt with because it would take away from the romance, opening a can of worms that is best ignored for the sake of the story. But as a reader I couldn't help but wonder about these things, and the fact that they are glossed over or ignored made the story (and Felicity herself) seem less believable.
Despite these drawbacks, I got my money's worth and enjoyed the story overall. I may end up picking up book #2 when it comes out, too.
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Well, that's all the books I read in 2021! Hopefully next year will find me more productive when it comes to getting books read and reviewed. Thanks for reading!