This was a tricky decision, but I had a Margery Allingham as BotW a couple of weeks back so I went for a romance option instead. And it’s another contemporary romance as well! Daughters of the Bride is the latest from Susan Mallery – who has more books than I can count on Goodreads, even if this was the first of hers that I have read.
Courtney, Rachel and Sienna are preparing for a wedding – their mother’s. After their father died when they were young she’s found love again. But each of the three sisters has a secret (at least) from the others. Courtney is the misfit – she doesn’t feel as together as her sisters and she’s got a plan to prove to her family that she’s not the failure they think she is. Sienna’s boyfriend just proposed in front of all her friends and family, but with two failed engagements behind her, has she picked the right man this time? And Rachel has been divorced for a while now – but as her husband takes a more active role in her son’s life, she’s forced to reexamine the reasons for their break up and whether she’s ready to move on.
I really liked this book – all the sisters have strong stories and have been affected by the death of their father and the ramifications on their lives differently and it is a rollercoaster of emotions watching them work through their issues to get their happy endings. I had a favourite (I think you always do!) but the other two behind were pretty level. Their mum is a little harder to like at times – she’s tough and no nonsense and can be a bit self-centered, but as a reader you can understand why she behaved the way she did when her first husband died, even if you don’t understand her (seeming) inability to fully realise and acknowledge the effect it had on her children.
So there you have it – another contemporary romance book of the week and another book that would make a great beach read if you’re off to sunnier climes. My copy came from NetGalley, but you can get it on Kindle or Kobo, although the hardback price on Amazon is ridiculous (£20.40 as I write this) so don’t do that – it’s not long enough to be twenty quids worth of book!
This week’s BotW is Sarah Morgan’s latest book – Sunset in Central Park. This is the second book in her new series – about three young women who leave Puffin Island (the location of her previous series) for the bright lights of New York and a career in events management.
This is Frankie’s story – and Frankie is extremely wary of relationships after watching the fallout from her parents’ divorce when she was a teenager. She avoids emotional attachments to anyone except her two closest friends – who she works with – and garden designer Matt, one of her friend’s brothers and the owner of the brownstone where they all have flats in Brooklyn. She’s determined to keep their relationship strictly platonic, even though he makes her insides feel a bit odd, because all relationships end and she wants to keep him in her life. But what she doesn’t know is that Matt’s been crazy about her forever, but has kept quiet because he knows how fragile she is. But as he finds out more about her hidden depths as they work together on a project, the sparks fly. Will he be able to convince her to take a chance on what they have?
This is romantic, fun and satisfying. You know where it’s going, but it’s so much fun watching the characters work through all their issues to come to a happy conclusion. Sarah Morgan has created a great group of strong competent women and is busy pairing them up with the men they deserve – equally strong and competent, and who compliment the girls – who definitely don’t need a man to complete them or fix their lives. They can fix their own lives and problems, but the men will support and help them as they do it. I did want to give Frankie a bit of a slap at times, but I always understood why she was behaving the way that she did. I think I preferred the first book in the series slightly* – but that’s because I’m more of a Paige than I am a Frankie.
I don’t have a paperback copy of Sunset in Central Park, but I do have other Sarah Morgans!
If you asked me, I would probably tell you that I don’t like contemporary romances, but that’s because when people say contemporary romance I think of billionaires and secretaries, doctors and nurses, nannies and lonely widowers, secret dukes and princes, secret babies and accidental pregnancies – none of which float my boat. I like smart heroines getting a happy ending – and if the books have a touch of humour, so much the better. Thinking about it – and looking at the downstairs keepers bookshelf – there’s a lot of contemporary romance there – the sort of books that 10 years ago would have been called chick lit. I don’t like chick lit as a term – but women’s fiction is too broad a description – so they probably would fall under the contemporary romance banner.
I only started reading Sarah Morgan because I met her at Sarah MacLean’s London tea-party and got given a free copy of one of the Puffin Island books (although I then went out and bought the first in this series and read that first after hearing Sarah Morgan talk about it on Smart Podcast, Trashy Books at the end of May) but it turns out that her latest books are exactly what floats my boat. There was a sampler for Eva’s book at the end of this one and it left me desperate to read a Christmas-themed book – in July. And you know my feelings on starting to read about Christmas too early.
My copy of Sunset in Central Park came from NetGalley – but you can get a copy from Amazon and Kindle (actually cheaper in book form at the time of writing) and I suspect possibly in supermarkets and other bookstores. Don’t be put off by the Harlequin logo on the spine – if you are, you’ll be missing out. I’m off to mine more of Sarah Morgan’s back catalogue – although I’ll never get through all of it and some of them are medical romances…
Happy reading!
*I read Sleepless in Manhattan the same week that I read The Rogue Not Taken or it would probably have been BotW that week.
Such an easy decision for BotW this week – I absolutely loved Annie Darling’s Little Bookshop of Lonely Hearts. It is so much fun, and ticked so many of my book buttons.
Posy Morland loves her job at Bookends – a crumbling bookshop tucked away in a Bloomsbury mews. But when the shop’s owner, Lavinia, dies and leaves the shop to Posy her life is turned upside down. Posy’s got lots of plans to turn the ailing bookshop around, but she’s also got to contend with Lavinia’s autocratic grandson Sebastian – nicknamed The Rudest Man in London by one of the papers, and seemingly searching for the national title. With her friends and co-workers to help her, can Posy turn the shop around as well as dealing with Sebastian’s machinations? And why is she having lurid fantasies?
Isn’t my proof copy gorgeous? I do love a good cover – and the proper cover looks lovely too.
The back of my proof copy says it’s for fans of Georgette Heyer (waves) and Jenny Colgan (waves) and for people who’ve dreamed of opening their own bookshops (falls over waving so hard) and I would totally agree. Posy is a great heroine – she’s likeable, a little bit damaged and totally relatable. It was great fun reading about her figuring out what to do with the bookshop and trying to stand up to Sebastian. It’s also crammed full of gems for the romance reader – whether it’s obvious ones (like name checks for historical romance authors) or more subtle ones (not telling, find them yourself).
This whistles along at a tremendous pace, with twists and turns and heaving bosoms in empire line gowns (you’ll understand if you read it). I was cross it was over so quickly – because I could have spent another 200 pages with Posy and her band of misfits at the bookshop and as there’s an ad at the end for a sequel, my wish may yet come true. The back of my advance copy also has the author’s top five novels in it which include Heyer’s Regency Buck – which I adore – Pride and Prejudice (ditto) and a Courtney Milan. What’s not to love. And on top of that it has a bookshop list which includes not one but TWO name checks for my beloved Chalet School so basically I think Annie Darling and I would really get on.
I got sent an advanced copy by a publicist who I chat to on Twitter – who had spotted that I love Georgette Heyer. It’s not out in paperback yet (August 25th) – but it is out in Kindle (£2.99 at time of writing!) and you can pre-order the paperback on Amazon and Waterstones and Foyles will email you when they get it in stock. I suspect as it’s published by Harper it may make it to the supermarkets too. I would’ve saved my ravings for closer to the time, but as the Kindle is out and I think that this would make a great beach read I thought I’d alert you all now. Go forth and read it!
I retreated into the world of happy endings this week – and treated myself by letting myself read the new (well relatively new) Sarah MacLean which I have been saving for a Time Of Real Need.
This is the first in her new series – Scandal and Scoundrel – and after the massive high of the surprise reveal and general excitement of the final book of the Rules of Scoundrels, I wasn’t sure this could live up to my massive expectations. And then I found out that the new series was inspired by celebrity scandals of today and got a bit worried. But I really didn’t need to. Sarah MacLean knows exactly what she’s doing.
The cover model is just a bit to… meh. All downcast eyes and no personality – completely un-Sophie like!
Sophie Talbot is the youngest of a line of scandalous daughters of a noveau riche peer. Her sisters revel in their notorious reputations, but she’s not keen. She’s the most retiring member of the family right up until she pushes her elder sister’s cheating husband into a pond at a party. He’s a duke – old family, old money – she’s not. Suddenly she’s the biggest scandal in society and facing being an outcast. So she makes a run for it. But she makes her escape it using the carriage belonging to the Marquess of Eversley, who’s fairly scandalous himself. He thinks she’s trying to trap him into marriage. She knows she definitely isn’t. But then Things Happen.
I enjoyed this so much. The characters are engaging, the dialogue is witty and fun. There’s lots of proper plot – no wishy-washy misunderstandings that could be solved by one person asking the other a question. And just when you think it’s nearly fixed, MacLean throws in another twist to the tail. I was a little hesitant about one of these which happened towards the end of the book, but it was dealt with so neatly and resolved so satisfactorily that by the time the book was over I’d almost forgotten it had annoyed me. I was also desperate to read the next in the series which isn’t out until August, but I’ll try and contain my impatience.
I still prefer the US cover to the UK one – cheesy thought the American romance covers are, they have no shame about what they are – there’s heaving bosoms, unlaced corsets that improbably reveal no under garments, ridiculous muscles and flowing locks, but they’re unapologetic about it, where as the ones here are misty and coy and undersell the contents. But hey, at least with a British edition we don’t have to pay silly money to get them shipped in anymore. Although – full disclosure – I got my copy from the publisher who gave them to everyone who went to Sarah MacLean’s London teaparty (she’s lovely) so I may yet buy a US version to match the rest of my books of hers…
Get your copy from Amazon, Foyles or Waterstones, or for Kindle or on Audible. If you’re in the States, it should be everywhere fine, fine romances are sold (to quote Sarah Wendell.). Happy Romancing!
Hello gentle reader. As you may have noticed, I do quite like a good romance novel. I’m more of a historical romance reader than anything else, but I do sometimes stray into contemporary and to a lesser extent paranormal. I’ve been thinking a lot recently about why some books linger on the to-read pile and it’s led to me contemplating what my favourite and least favourite tropes are in the romance genre. Once you’ve figured out what you like and what you don’t like, it makes it much easier to wade through a genre where there are so many books to chose from. And it also makes it easier to work out what you might like when you’re trying a different type of romance from the ones you usually read.
Lets start with my pet hates…
Accidental Pregnancies/Secret pregnancies
Oof. I think this is my absolute least favourite. If an author that I adore writes one of these, I’ll probably read it, but apart from that I give these a wide birth. I think this is probably all bound up in my own fear of accidental pregnancy, but these do absolutely nothing for me except make me want to scream with rage. Accidental secret pregnancy plots will have me hurling a book across the room if I happen to encounter them.
Secret Children
Following on from the pregnancy problem, I like secret children only slightly better. It has to be really good for me to be able to get past the fact that you’ve stopped the child’s father from being a part of their life for x years. And given that the whole idea of the plot is usually that the heroine will reunite with the father, then the reason’s for the secret tend to be a bit lame/spurious. And as far as contemporary romances go, in the days of the internet and social media it’s easier than ever to keep in touch with people and harder than ever to keep this sort of secret…
Amnesia
Just no. Luckily you don’t find it very often any more (although there is a bit in one of my favourite author’s latest novels, but it’s a late on twist so I just about coped with it) because people have (thankfully) realised that Amnesia is rare, and if you’ve got it, you may well have other stuff going wrong too which is harder to fix. I can’t think of a single romance with amnesia as a main plot point that I’ve read and enjoyed. And I’ve been down lists of amnesia romances on Goodreads and it hasn’t jogged my memory either. I understand there’s a pregnant-with-amnesia sub-genre, which sounds like my idea of hell, although Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have a very witty review of the hilariously titled Pregnesia.
My favourites:
Girls dressed up as boys
Twelfth Night has been my favourite Shakespeare play since we studied it when I was 11 (side note: check out the amazing Globe production of it with Oscar Winner (squee) Mark Rylance as Lady Olivia – clip below!) and I love plots with girls dressed up as boys. From Leonie in These Old Shades, through Harriet in Duchess by Night, Callie in Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake (and that other Sarah MacLean one which not a traditional “breeches” role and is a massive spoiler if you haven’t read the rest of the series) and many more besides, it’s a plot device that will often get me to pick up a new author. It’s usually only found in Historical Romance although if you know of any good contemporary ones, please put them in the comments!
Fake engagements
This is one has to be deployed cleverly, because breaking an engagement would ruin the heroine socially so she’d have to have a good reason to do it, but it’s popular device in more recently written historicals, there’s something I love about couples who enter into these for nerfarious reasons of their own and get more than they bargain for. Because of the above social consequences, it’s not a plot often employed by my beloved Georgette Heyer – I can only think of one fake engagement in her books and that’s False Colours, which almost doesn’t count because Kit is pretending to be his twin brother throughout in a lovely twist. Julia Quinn’s The Duke and I is a great example
Marriages of convenience
Following on from those fake engagements, I do love a marriage of convenience plot, although conversely I think my least favourite Georgette Heyer is A Civil Contract – but she does have some crackers too like April Lady and Friday’s Child (my mum’s favourite). When cleverly executed they can be wonderful fun – Eloisa James’s The Ugly Duchess, Mary Balogh’s At Last Comes Love and Quinn’s To Sir Philip with Love is a fun twist on the idea. To be honest, it’s fairly hard to mess up a marriage of convenience – there are lots of ways a lady can accidentally get compromised – and there’s lots of reasons why people might enter into one (keep lands, escape an evil guardian, get an inheritance etc).
I do read other stuff of course – I like house parties, rake-y heros, beta heros, guardians and wards (but only the sort who don’t do anything about it until the wards are of age), friends to lovers, best friend’s sibling and much much more. To be honest, beyond my pet hates above there’s not much I won’t give at least one try (except the Tragic Lives aisle of the bookshop). All recommendations for things that might tick any of my boxes are gratefully received – in the comments below please!
I know – two posts in two days. I’m spoiling you. But I couldn’t let Valentines Day go past without mentioning some of my favourite romantic books.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
I don’t care about all the posts about how you wouldn’t actually want to be with Mr Darcy in real life because I love this book. I started reading my mum’s copy of the book as soon as I’d finished watching the first part of the 1995 BBC adaptation of it and I adored it. I was in the tail-end of primary school and just flat-out loved Lizzy. My TV tie-in copy is much loved and I read it a lot. Read it and fall in love with Lizzy as much as you do with Darcy. And he grows as a person people. Everyone’s allowed to make a mistake and compared to some of the stuff romance novel heros have in their past, being a bit stuck up and arrogant is not the biggest problem ever!
These Old Shades by Georgette Heyer
And a prime example of how Darcy could be so much worse is the Duke of Avon. Justin’s nickname is Satanas. You’re told he’s lost a fortune at the gaming tables and then won back someone elses – someone who then killed themselves. He kidnapped a woman to try to force her to marry him. But I defy you not to be rooting for him as he turns Leon the page into Leonie the lady and restores her to her place in eighteenth century French High Society. And the way he achieves it isn’t exactly all hearts and flowers (although it is totally deserved). One of my favourite romance tropes is I’m not good enough for him/her and this is just the perfect example of that. And then when you’re done falling in love with Big Bad Justin, read Devil’s Cub and meet his son Dominic – mad, bad and dangerous to know and watch prim and proper Mary win his heart. He doesn’t think he’s good enough either. Swoon.
Stately Pursuits by Katie Fforde
Still my favourite Fforde novel (see my love letter to Fforde here), and you may start to detect a theme in my heros here. Connor is tall, dark, brooding and moody. Hetty’s mum’s sent her to look after Great Uncle Samuel’s stately home. Hetty wants to save it, Connor thinks selling it is the best solution. Cue fireworks of two different types. If you like your heros a little bit more beta, try Fforde’s Flora’s Lot and Charles the auctioneer. He’s engaged and thinks Flora is pushy. She thinks he’s uptight and change resistant. Another of my favourite tropes – I hate you, I hate you, I can’t stop thinking about your hair as Sarah McLean of Smart Bitches would say.
Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L Sayers
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. This is the most romantic detective story ever. After 3 books of angst and tension, Peter and Harriet are finally married. But a body turns up at their honeymoon dream house and unless they can figure out who did it Harriet is worried that Peter will be haunted by it forever. You’ll appreciate it most if you’ve read the other three books first, but once you have you’ll come back to it again and again. I’ve listened to it once this week on audiobook already. If you need more convincing I wrote a whole post about the wonders of Peter in general and Peter and Harriet in particular.
And Finally…
And if this still isn’t quite enough romance for you, try Eloisa James Duchess by Night featuring another of my favourite tropes – girls dressed as boys (see also the aforementioned These Old Shades) or Sarah MacLean’s Nine Rules to Break when Romancing a Rake (I would suggest Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover but that’s the end of a series and a big spoiler for the earlier books) which is another great trope (heroine needs to learn about love, asks rakish man to teach her) or a bit of Julia Quinn. Try not to get hooked. American-import romance can be an expensive habit.
This week’s BotW is Kristan Higgins’ latest romance Anything For You – which in a stroke of serendipity is out today! For those of you who are all Christmas’d out, this would make a great break from the festivities. It has a winery, some star-crossed lovers and a whole lot of fun.
Anything For You tells the story of Connor and Jessica. They’ve been hooking up in secret for years and now Connor wants to take it public – and make it official. But Jessica thinks things are fine as they are – and she has her brother to look after, her brother who really doesn’t like Connor. So with Connor down on one knee and telling her it’s all or nothing, how sure is Jessica that marriage isn’t for her?
This is such a good read. Jessica and Connor have such a tangled backstory – which is explained really well in a series of flashback-type sequences in the aftermath of the proposal. They are both really complicated, well thought out characters. Connor has quite a privileged background (I mean he’s not a billionaire or a billionaire’s son, but there’s some money there) but a difficult relationship with his parents. Jessica has dragged herself up from a trailerpark whilst bringing up her little brother in the process – she’s got trust issues, abandonment issues and a bit of an inferiority complex. Watching them work out their problems is a really engrossing read.
And they are proper problems that need a proper resolution. I’ve read a lot of romances where the obstacles keeping the hero and heroine apart aren’t really obstacles – or are easily resolved. But these two have something real and tangible to work out. And the resolution is really well worked out – it doesn’t involve one of them suddenly doing an abrupt character change or an about face. They work out their problems and grow and mature to a solution.
And if that sounds too serious – don’t worry! There’s plenty of humour here too – Connor has a fabulously funny relationship with his twin sister Colleen (aka Dog Face) and the two of them have some great sparky exchanges. And Con and Jess have their moments too. Add to that a very stabbable events planner and some meddling friends and the angsty bits are well balanced out.
This was my first Kristan Higgins – but I’ve already found another one in the Kindle backlog pile so that may well have jumped its way closer to the top. My copy came via NetGalley, but you can get yourself a copy from Amazon or Amazon.com – although it doesn’t seem to be available on Kindle in the UK or the US at the moment.
It will be absolutely no surprise to you regular readers that this week’s BotW is Trisha Ashley’s latest – A Christmas Cracker. You can see my previous musings on her work here, here and briefly here. I’m not usually a Christmas book in October kind of person (although I seem to have read a few of them already this year) but I’m always read to make an exception for Trisha. Her books are totally my catnip. Warm and humourous, with heroines on journeys and a variety of different types of heros. Her heroines have usually made had problems in their love lives before – whether through picking Bad Men or through mistakes and misunderstandings. I always think of them as second chance romances (as in slightly older people, and not their first love affair), but I know that the “proper” definition of that trope is the “we met when we were young but it didn’t work out, but now we’re trying again” type of story, although Trisha has written a couple of those and they’re really very good.
Why can I never get a good photo of a book with foil lettering on the cover?The heroine of A Christmas Cracker is Tabby. She’s ended up doing prison time for a crime she didn’t commit, her fiance has dumped her and given her cat away, one of her friends lied about her in court and her life is generally in tatters. Then she gets a second chance from Mercy. She’s been working in Africa for years, but has retired and come back to try and rescue the family cracker business, which is floundering. She thinks that Tabby could be the breath of fresh air that it needs to save it from the chop. But Mercy’s nephew Randall think’s Tabby is a con-woman and out for what she can get – he’s got his own plans for Marwood’s Christmas Crackers and he’s watching her like a hawk…
I’m hoping that you’ve read that and thought – “Gosh that sounds generally delightful and festive too” – and it really is (if you didn’t, I’m sorry – I haven’t done it justice). Tabby is a wonderful and relatable heroine. I was initially sceptical about a lead character who starts off the book in the clink, but I shouldn’t have doubted Trisha – it’s a masterstroke. Trisha Ashley’s books have a long history of giving us quirky/fun older/elderly lady characters too (Great Aunt’s Hebe and Ottie in A Winter’s Tale, Mad Aunt Debo in Creature Comforts, I could go on) and Mercy is another great addition to the list – she’s a bundle of energy in light-up trainers who sees the best in everyone and will give hospitality to anyone.
Honestly, I can’t say enough good things about A Christmas Cracker – I got an e-copy via NetGalley – but I went out at the weekend to buy myself an actual copy as well. And not just because I have all her other books in paperback (and most of them in ebook as well) and I have a thing about sets and completion, but because I wanted to read it again, in a proper book, so I can pick out my favourite scenes so I know where they are in the book so I can go back and read them again.
If you only read one Christmas book this year (or before December at any rate) make this it. It should be everywhere – Tesco were selling it for a very special price of £2 at the weekend (so cheap that I almost wanted to go and buy it somewhere else in case it meant the author royalties would be smaller) and I’d expect it to be all over the place in the other supermarkets and bookshops. If I’ve sold it to you as being so good that you can’t wait to go to a shop (and you wouldn’t be wrong), the Kindle and Kobo editions are £2.99 at time of writing. Prices aren’t quite as special for the paperback at the online retailers, but here are the Amazon, Waterstones and Foyles links just in case.
Back into proper historical romance territory with this week’s BotW. I read a couple of good books last week – but you’ve already heard enough about my love of Janet Evanovich and Lauren Willig and Kerrigan Byrne’s The Highwayman bucked the trend of not-so-good historicals that I’ve had recently.
Farah and Dougan are best friends at the orphanage in the 1850s. They handfast – but then A Bad Thing happens and they are parted. Jump forward 20ish years and Farah is working as a clerk at Scotland Yard when Ruthless Villain Dorien Blackmore is brought in for questioning. She’s promptly kidnapped so he can keep her safe from Forces Which Threaten Her. But will he capture her heart?
The Highwayman (which doesn’t actually have a lot of actual highwaying in the actual narrative, so don’t go expecting the Masqueraders in Victorian times people) hits a whole lot of my catnip including – without giving too much away – tortured hero! Smart heroine! Marriage of convenience*! It also has a side order of some of my peeves – comedy Scottish accents, kilts, lairds, handfasting – but it is good enough and different enough that I didn’t care. It wasn’t perfect – even if you don’t have my dislike of the Highlander trope in general there were some language choices that didn’t work – but it rattled along quickly and there was so much happening that you didn’t notice too much. I had a few things pegged fairly early on, but it Didn’t Matter.
As I said at the top, I’ve had a run of not great historical romances recently and this was a breath of fresh air – the Victorian setting made a change (and meant that we didn’t get too far into my least favourite bits about Scottish heros/stories) and Farah is a smart sensible woman who lives up to the billing. Yes its quite dark. Yes the hero is a Bad Boy who has done stuff that Can’t Be Fixed, but it is not at all miserable. As you can probably tell from all the Capital Letters its a bit melodramatic – in a good way. I really enjoyed The Highwayman and will be looking out for the next in the Victorian Rebels series.
Get your copy from Amazon or on Kindle but don’t expect to find it in the supermarket – its not that sort of romance!
*It’s in the blurb on Goodreads I’m allowed to mention it
A slightly shorter post than usual this week, but the decision of what to pick was easy. This week’s BotW is Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation. I’ve been meaning to read some Crusie for a while as Sarah Wendell from Smart Bitches, Trashy Books has mentioned her several times on her podcast. She often recommends Bet me, but as I’ve got such a backlog, I’ve held back on buying any. Then I spotted this in a charity shop for £1 and buy one book, get one free and just couldn’t resist. Good decision.
Sophie is in Temptation to help her sister make a film. But curtains are twitching and trouble is coming. And the town’s mayor is a bit of a complication too… I don’t usually like contemporary romances (I often find them sickly sweet) but this is smart and funny and not all hearts and flowers. The back hints at a body count, but I was beginning to think I’d misinterpreted it as the body doesn’t turn up until two thirds of the way through! As always I would’ve liked a little more of the HEA at the end, but hey, I can’t have everything!
Now all I need to do is lay my hands on a copy of Bet Me!
Verity Reads Books (lots of them) 