Thank You Eileen Dreyer!

As I think I've mentioned recently, I'm not too thrilled with the current state of historical romance. This genre just seems tired and stale. I read a ton of historicals and yet I am hard pressed to make enthusiastic recommendations when asked. It seems that the majority of publishers are pushing the light hearted, wallpaper type historical romances. These books have very little in common with the deeply emotional and angsty historicals that I cut my teeth on.  I miss those larger than life stories. I miss the audacity of those writers who were not afraid to write a messy, complex love story with difficult and sometimes downright nasty characters. Where are the Patricia Gaffneys, the Candace Proctors, the Jo Goodmans these days? I have been craving a story with depth and angst and all the wonderful emotional excess of the classic historical writers that I love so much. Well, good news! I found one. Or rather, two, actually. Two stories that is, one writer. A great writer! A writer so good that she almost made me cry while reading and that my friends is incredibly difficult to do.


While scouring Amazon recently for cheap kindle reads, I stumbled across Barely a Lady. When browsing the reviews, my interest was piqued when I realized that even those readers that didn't care for the story spoke of how well written it was. Even as they bitched about the horrid, unfeeling hero, they admitted that they had to finish the book and just might read the next one. I am always intrigued by books that provoke such strong reactions in readers, so of course I immediately bought the title and settled in to see what all the fuss was about.


The story seemed familiar enough, from Booklist: 
Five years ago Olivia’s husband, Jack, nearly destroyed her life, and now he is about to do it again. Accepting scurrilous rumors as fact, Jack divorced Olivia early in their marriage, leaving her destitute. She has finally rebuilt her life, and now all her hard work is threatened when Jack’s old valet suddenly turns up and insists that Olivia accompany him to Waterloo, where Olivia discovers that Jack is badly wounded and attired in a French officer’s uniform. Helping her ex could very well destroy Olivia, but she knows Jack is no traitor.


A familiar plot to be sure, but in the hands of Ms. Dreyer, this felt so very fresh. Her characters, both main and supporting, were wonderfully drawn and deeply complex people. Jack and Olivia met and married when they were very young. They also shared a deep and intense physical attraction. Jack was easily led by his friends and family, none of whom cared much for the vicar's daughter he had married. Jack has paid his penance by becoming an agent in a group known as Drake's Rakes. The Rakes are aristocrats who do undercover work for the government.  Olivia has spent the years eeking out a living as a companion and trying to rebuild her shattered life. These two had both been through so much and they had obviously grown and matured. When they are reunited under extremely stressful circumstances, it seems inevitable that the passion that they once shared will be rekindled. And rekindled it is, in a really gloriously emotional and angsty manner. Besides dealing with Jack's amnesia, they are also dealing with the fallout from Waterloo and the danger and intrigue that seems to be coming from all sides.  


Some readers took issue with the fact that Jack spends a good bit of time thinking about his mistress, Mimi. He has vague memories of the very deep feelings he had for her and cannot reconcile those with the past and current feelings he has for Olivia. This didn't bother me at all. The fact that Jack had a mistress and the fact that he had feelings for her seemed completely rational considering he and Olivia had been separated for five years. I have never been one of those readers that finds that any sort of cheating, either physical or emotional is a deal breaker. I think that this situation can provide some great angst, provided it is handled well and Ms. Dreyer proved to have quite a deft touch. That said, I thought there were times when she overplayed her hand a bit. A few less mentions of Mimi might have made the story work better for some, more sensitive, readers.  Overall though I loved this book. It has been ages since I have enjoyed a historical romance this much.  It reminded me of the crazy passionate historicals that I have read through the years and I found myself so swept away by the emotional story that I hated to see it end. 

I was saved from my despair thanks to the fact that Ms. Dreyer has just released the second title in the Drake's Rakes trilogy, Never A Gentleman.  Delayed gratification having never been a particular strength of mine, I bought it immediately upon finishing Barely a Lady.  I enjoyed it every bit as much as Barely a Lady, but it deserves a full review and I'm still caught up in reliving the glory of it, so that will be along in a  couple of days. Hopefully, I will have calmed down enough to be a bit more cogent when we talk about that one.  


Let me just offer a heartfelt thanks to Eileen Dreyer for letting me revisit the glory days of European historical romances. Fascinating characters, sizzling passion, vivid writing, wells of emotion, and an intriguing plot combined to make Barely a Lady the most entertaining historical I've read in ages!  


A quick note for Kindle owners, use the link below and get over to Amazon immediately and order this books for the amazing price of $1.99.  You can thank me later...  

Silly titles III - Eleven Scandals, blah, blah, blah...

OK, we all know how I feel about cutesy titles for romance novels, I'm not in favor of them. I've already taken Avon to task for this, so I won't go over the old territory. My feelings toward the titles notwithstanding, the third book in Maclean's trilogy exhibits many of the same strengths as the earlier two.

Eleven Scandals features the trials and tribulations of Juliana Fiori. Juliana is the younger half sister of Gabriel and Nicolas St. John, who were featured in the first two books of the Love By Numbers series. The beginning of Eleven Scandals finds Juliana deeply attracted to Simon Pearson, Duke of Leighton, also lovingly known as the 'Duke of Disdain' due to his fondness for proper behavior and his rigid adherence to social rules and guidelines. Anyone who has ever read a romance novels understands immediately where this is going, fiery Juliana will shake up rigid Simon's world and love and passion will be the result.  Still, even though the premise is predictable, Maclean writes with such an enormous amount of charm and humor, and her characters are so well drawn and interesting that we are willing and happy to be along for the ride.

Let me just say that Juliana is not my favorite kind of heroine. I appreciated her humor and her passionate nature, but heroines who go about falling into scandalous situations while bemoaning the fact that society will never accept them tend to wear on me. It is to Maclean's credit that she kept Juliana complex enough to engage, even as I rolled my eyes at her antics. Maclean does a fine job of exploring both Simon and Juliana's background and this allows the reader to understand and empathize with both of these often maddening characters. Simon is so uptight because he has been raised and groomed to be a Duke from a very early age. Propriety is all he knows. Thanks to his younger sister Georgiana, he is also facing a potential scandal that could spoil their family name and reputation. As a preemptive measure, he has decided to marry the most prim and proper woman he can find and that means that Juliana is out of the running. It is somewhat surprising to me that Simon seemed to alienate a lot of readers. I liked him. He appears to be doing what Dukes do and his attempts to preserve his family name and social standing seem entirely appropriate for the time period. Sure, he is a bit of a prig and his confusion concerning his attraction to Juliana causes him to behave badly at times, but I really felt more empathy for him than for Juliana. It is a credit to Maclean's great strength as a writer that I ended up understanding and liking both of these characters. In the end, their mad chemistry and the wildly romantic, if completely implausible, denouement made this book an enjoyable read.

Maclean is certainly a bright spot in the somewhat dismal world of historical romance these days.  Her skill as a writer, her humor and her charm all remind me very much of the best work of Julia Quinn or Sabrina Jeffries.  I have enjoyed all three titles in this series and I and very excited to see where Maclean takes us next.