Ten Second Reviews

Romancing the Duke

By Tessa Dare

As the daughter of a famed author, Isolde Ophelia Goodnight grew up on tales of brave knights and fair maidens. She never doubted romance would be in her future, too. The storybooks offered endless possibilities.

And as she grew older, Izzy crossed them off. One by one by one.

• Ugly duckling turned swan?
• Abducted by handsome highwayman?
• Rescued from drudgery by charming prince?

No, no, and . . . Heh.

Now Izzy's given up yearning for romance. She'll settle for a roof over her head. What fairy tales are left over for an impoverished twenty-six year-old woman who's never even been kissed?

This one.

 

This one grew on me, as I don't really like "zany" romances, and this one started out that way, with a bedraggled destitute lady camping out at an abandoned castle with a blind duke with some type of wolf -dog mix and a ferret.  Oh, yes, very likely (don't you know that realism is required in all romance novels?).  I was getting close to DNFing, but since I'd actually used up a legitimate hold for it, I figured I should at least finish, and it got better as it went on.  Companions showed up, things settled down some, though the tone was still very much "Disney-fied historical romance", but by the end of it, I wasn't mad.  Was it really my jam? Absolutely not, I will not be re-reading it.  But it did feel "mostly harmless".   Basically, a bunch of kooky people find each other, decide that friendship is more important than proving sanity, catch a lucky break because one of the sanity-hearing officers likes some books the woman's father published, and they all live happily ever after. 

 

 

 

The Further Observations of Lady Whistledown

By Suzanne Enoch, Karen Hawkins, Mia Ryan, and Julia Quinn

 

Lady Whistledown Tells All!

When the scandalous actions of his beautiful fiancée are recorded in Lady Whistledown's column, a concerned groom-to-be rushes back to London to win his lady's heart once and forever, in Suzanne Enoch's enchanting romantic gem.

Karen Hawkins captivates with an enduring story of a handsome rogue whose lifelong friendship — and his heart — are tested when the lovely lady in question sets her cap for someone else.

A dazzling and delightful tale by Mia Ryan has a young woman cast out of her home by an insufferable yet charming marquis — who intends to take possession not only of the house ... but its former occupant as well!

Society is abuzz when the Season's most promising debutante is jilted by her intended — only to be swept away by the deceitful rogue's dashing older brother — in New York Times bestseller Julia Quinn's witty, charming, and heartfelt tale.

 

Did I check this out because Bridgerton is all the rage, and The Viscount Who Loved Me is totally unavailable at the library? Yes, there are 14 people for each of the 21 copies my library has, meaning that if I checked it out, I could expect it in mmm, perhaps seven months, and even that is a workaround, because they aren't stocking the second book solo, it's only available in a set of the first three in the series.  I like Bridgerton okay, certainly not as much as some people (and not as much as my mother, who appears to be using it as a method of mood-stabilizers during COVID) but the second's plotline was the only one that appealed to me to read.  Anyway, so this was a distant second choice!

Although all the stories are interlinked (and take place at the same activities, set in London from about January 26th to February 15th, 1814, serendipitously), with the different authors, there's some definite changes in quality from story to story.  For example, Quinn's is obviously the best (due to both her authorly experience and it being her characters, so I would have assumed it), then Enoch, Hawkins, and finally Ryan is a -very- distant fourth.  I think I skipped most of that one, it was so scattershot and nonsensical.  Some of them would have been more satisfying as stand-alone novels - I think Quinn's in particular could have withstood longer treatment, and Hawkins had a great premise, but the character seemed to realize they loved each other in a very all-of-a-sudden! way that felt rushed and necessary for Moving the Story Along reasons than a natural pace.  And although it felt clever at first, by the fourth time we've revisited the same two "group" scenes from various characters' perspectives - one at the theater and one with several characters falling over in a snowbank while ice-skating, it mostly felt tedious.  Overall, not a terrible waste of an afternoon, but not really all that exciting either.  

What I really need is a good author who is NOT ON HOLD FOR SEVEN MONTHS.  Unfortunately, I found like, two that I like consistently, and I read all theirs and now it's even harder to get books because of the Bridgerton phenomenon, so I'm reduced to trawling recommendation lists and reading the zany ones or my second choices. God forbid I actually have to buy my romance novels as opposed to getting them free a the library or second hand at a used booksale behind my mother's back and then smuggled home illicitly.