Suddenly You – Book Review

Finished reading

Suddenly You

by Lisa Kleypas

★★★

Expectation

I was intrigued by bits and pieces I’ve heard about this book. This is not my first Lisa Kleypas book. I am a great fan of her Wallflowers book series. This book came up a few times I was looking up for historical romance books. I was drawn to this book by the somewhat different introduction for historical romance genre – “old spinster” hires a male prostitute for her 30th birthday…

Summary

Admittedly, the back of the book introductions sounded quite cheesy and scandalous. A thirty year old unmarried woman author in 19th century London decides to hire a male prostitute and experience what making love feels like.

As much as I find this – treating yourself for your own birthday thing – endearingly powerful and logical, the gift in itself was remarkably thought out as much as an unmarried spinster of that time could devise it. The plot twist was interesting enough to keep me going.

I made quite a few breaks while reading and I can partially put the blame on that my feeling that this book felt big in the sense of all that has happened trough the story. Some characters made me suspicious for being to nice and that made me feel bad about how jaded I seemed to myself.

What keeps me interested in these historical romances is usually the drama and this book had drama aplenty. What was different though was how some life altering events gotten blown over with almost no drama at all.

Had I not recently had a heated discussion on a topic of historical romance genre I might have had a completely different review of this book. What changed and came into focus were historical romance imperative – a must have happy ending.

Happy ending aside there were some serious themes that were provided with less page time than the steamy sex scenes. This was done in such an obvious way that I just had to stop and wonder at it. Some themes made me cry a bit and the offset and complete contrast between the two made me uneasy. This has not made the reading of this book an experience I hoped it would be. And sure there were some occasional comedy thrown in to the mix but not nearly enough comic relief by my opinion.

Conclusion

I liked many parts and themes this book introduced. Some were quite serious and heavy but were maybe gotten over with too lightly…I had a sense that for some reason I did not think it was well rounded in the topics it brought out. Book seemed a bit short for everything that happened in it

Maybe it is a blessing when one can pass the difficult themes in as lighter way as it was portrayed in this book…

 

 

The Spinster and the Earl – Book review

Finished reading:
The Spinster and the Earl (Gentlemen of Honor: Book 1) by Beverly Adam

Expectation
I got it as a Kindle freebie while searching for some regency romance read to lighten up my reading. In the last year Lisa Kleypas and Eloisa James have become my favorite authors and I was looking for something simillar. I was lucky with Kindle freebies so far and I like trying out new authors for free. Some of the freebies I tried out this way turned into favorites!

Summary
This was a historical romance set in Ireland. The Spinster of the story is an interesting character. The story was filed with characters and themes one would expect in a historical romance novel – sometimes I had a feeling that the author wanted to use so many cliched references in her story that her characters suffered. I had some difficulty getting into the story and the characters were a bit fluttery (they were all over the place and predictable).Maybe the story would have worked better if the characters had been better presented. The Earl of the story had a background story that was only hinted at and that’s a real shame.

“As for Beatrice, by the holy rood, the lass needed a husband! Brushing aside the fact that both his daughter and the earl were of hot, unruly dispositions, the old lord spat into his hand and held it out to seal the match.
“My lord, ’tis a match made in heaven,”James said. a faint sardonic smile lit his rugged face as he heartily spat into his own palm and slapped his future father-in-law’s hand. They shook forcefully. The couple was now as good as promised to eachother.”
The Spinster and the Earl (Gentlemen of Honor: Book 1) by Beverly Adam

I am no expert for Irish brogue and English accents but something just felt a bit off in that department.

Conclusion
There were few “laugh out loud” moments trough the book an that is a big plus. I liked the story setting but think that the author could have done better by her characters.

“..a low rumble of manly mirth was heard warming the air.”