My Favorite Countess

My Favorite Countess by Vanessa Kelly 1122

Lady Bathsheba, the widowed Countess Randolph, has no idea how she is going to pull herself and the estate’s her husband left bankrupt, into prosperity again. Her brother-in-law, Matthew, who inherited after her husband, Richard’s, death, is kindly incompetent and she knows he will be no help. She is horrified at the prospect of spending the rest of her life in the country so she comes up with a plan to go to London and marry a wealthy man before her financial situation is exposed. Dr. John Blackmore is visiting his mentor in Ripon when he meets Lady Randolph at the local squire’s dinner and is amazed at how outspoken she is, even if her opinions are not the most popular. But what strikes both of them the most, is the intense attraction they both have for one another. When she gets sick after visiting her sister, Rachel, it is Blackmore that takes care of her and suddenly there is more to their relationship than she had been expecting. But Bathsheba needs money to care for Rachel in keep her in hiding, since a childhood illness left Rachel with the mental capacity of a child.

John wants to get to know Bathsheba better and thinks that she needs something more in her life than just being a countess and wants her to get involved in his hospital St. Bart’s. He has hopes of one day opening up a hospital that doesn’t turn away women in need and can help poor women get through and survive pregnancy and childbirth. They end up running into each other in London quite a bit and become even closer when Bathsheba recommends his services to her new friend, Lady Silverton. Now the idea of being John’s wife is exciting to Bathsheba and she contemplates a life of happiness and freedom from the worry that has plagued her. John’s idea that the poor need to be treated as well as the wealthy has earned his enemies and the husband of a patient of his who died in childbirth is causing him problems and Bathsheba does not know if she can stand being the wife of a man who puts a passion, even if is for a good cause, ahead of his own safety and her peace of mind. John and Bathsheba are both forced to recognize that they can put their pasts behind them and make a new future for themselves full of love.

Bathsheba was the rather horrible villain of Kelly’s book, Sex and the Single Earl, and I remember feeling like there was not enough back-story to explain her behavior and this book certainly provides it. It was incredibly obvious in this book why she would be regarded as the enemy rather than the heroine of a romance novel, I personally loved her and thought she was the perfect material for a romance. Her outspoken-ness bordered on rudeness, she hated country life and made no qualms about it, she wanted money because she wanted a comfortable life and wasn’t above using rather mercenary tactics to achieve her goals. I found that I liked how different she was from most other heroine’s and while the Kelley did make attempts to explain some of her behavior I especially liked that she wasn’t excusing it or trying to make it go away. Bathsheba had had a rather difficult life with a cruel and controlling husband and a father who sent away her sister and told everyone she was dead and that shaped Bathsheba’s life and she spent a good portion of the book admirable trying to atone for her mistakes.

I liked having a doctor for a hero and John was certainly a great example of how a non-lordly romance lead can be written. He was passionate about his work and saving women and children’s lives and that by itself made him so likable. He was able to see past Bathsheba’s coldness and bring out the warmth and happiness that had been stomped out of her by her past, while being forced to recognize that mistakes from his own past had to be overcome as well. I truly felt like Bathsheba and John brought out the best in each other and worked better together than they did apart. He gave Bathsheba a purpose to her life in helping at the hospital and she brought acceptance and peace to his life that he had never experienced. Their relationship progressed very naturally throughout the course of the book as they met and got to know each other and attraction and lust developed into liking and admiration and into love. The sex between them was really hot as well and spread liberally throughout the book.

Rating: A very good book with one of my favorite heroines and a great relationship and fun writing and a fast pace. 

Ecstasy Wears Emeralds

Ecstasy Wears Emeralds by Renee Bernard 1027

Dr. Rowan West is a well-respected, if not entirely conventional, physician in London who is working hard to do the best he can for his patients and to forget his past. Gayle Renshaw desperately wants to become a physician but all the usual means are blocked because of her gender so she resorts to blackmail. She knows that Rowan was involved with her cousin, Charlotte, back in Standish Crossing, and despite not knowing the specifics, she does know that everyone holds Rowan responsible. Rowan is in need of an apprentice anyway and he sees that she has potential so he succumbs to her blackmail and agrees to train her but only if she will keep their arrangement semi-secret because he does not want other physicians to get wind of what is happening. He immediately puts Gayle to work and while she finds the work exhausting she is excited and motivated and he quickly realizes that she is dedicated and will make a find physician. Gayle has been lead to think of Rowan as heartless, but he proves to be kind and caring and his patients love him.

Suddenly Rowan and his friends come into the picture as members of "The Jaded" a not-quite club of men who apparently met in India while they were all held captive by a mad Indian maharaja. Their experience bonded them and when they left they stole a huge pile of treasure and divided it by color and now someone is after them and trying to get this treasure. The men are trying to decide what to do, but do not know who is trying to hurt them and do not know how to go about smoking him out and making themselves safe again. Rowan needs to keep Gayle safe, even if it means never letting her out of his sight, and this proves far less annoying than he had expected and the two of them spend quite a bit of time together. Gayle still has doubts about Rowan because of what she had learned about his role in her cousin's death, but she has learned that she should accept nothing as fact and should form her own opinions and the man she has come to know could never have harmed someone. Gayle and Rowan have to faith the threats against them, both internal and external, before they are able to accept their love.

I admired Gayle's drive to become a doctor, even if her reason for doing so is kept far too well hidden until the very end of the book, but I felt like her method of going about it was a little off. She foisted herself onto a man she had never met, a man who she believes may have killed her cousin, and while her drive and ambition were intriguing, it was too weird a situation for me. She was intelligent and good with her patients but I did not feel like there was much about her outside of her becoming a doctor. Rowan was very intelligent, even if he could easily have told Gayle the truth about her cousin and saved a whole bunch of bother, and his willingness to take on a female apprentice was years ahead of his time and he obviously cared for his patients. There relationship was actually pretty well developed because they spent a lot of time together even if much of it was in a master-apprentice relationship and/ or as them being doctors and learning. They learned a lot about each other and they were able to work well as physicians together, which seemed like a nice basis for people to get comfortable and fall in love.

They were drawn to each other physically but they both resisted for a long time because of their unorthodox working relationship. While when they eventually had sex it was steamy and inventive I did not feel like it was hot, and that might be because by that time I was just hoping the book would end soon and it was coming so late. Maybe unsatisfied desire can only last for so long before I feel like there's no point in satisfying it. The Jaded plot in this book came across as just ridiculous because it popped up completely out of the blue about halfway through and was not explained at all. Elements that were necessary to make sense of it were left out and new details that had been left out of the previous two books were thrown in- like dividing up the treasure by color- and they seemed haphazardly added for no reason. Nothing was resolved in the novel, because it is very clear that there are more books coming in the series and past happy couples appear repeatedly throughout the book and everyone is so happy with each other and such good friends and it annoyed me.

Rating: I felt like the Jaded plot dragged down the romance which already had some issues and I could not get in to what was happening with these 2 characters.

When Beauty Tamed the Beast

When Beauty Tamed the Beast by Eloisa James 704

Linnet Thrynne is the belle of the ton and everyone has taken notice, including one of the royal dukes, the Prince Augustus Frederick. But when the scandal breaks, the Prince hies it off to a castle, and Linnet is left outcast from society with everyone believing she is pregnant. Her father, a Viscount, and her aunt, the very dramatic Zenobia, run roughshod over her suggestions and come with a solution. The Duke of Landling is desperate to find his son, Piers Yelverton, Earl of Marchant, a wife, and since Piers is believed to be impotent and the Duke is obsessed with royalty, the belief that she is carrying a royal bastard is more of a help than a hindrance. Piers has earned a reputation as a beast since he is a doctor who treats his patients with very little patience and yells at everyone who crosses him. There is no love lost between father and son as Piers has never forgiven his father for being an opium addict who, while intoxicated, threw him into a fire and permanently damaged his leg so that Piers still walks with a can. The Duke also divorced his loyal and loving wife and dragged her through the mud when she left him.

Piers is determined not to like his father's choice, but Linnet is certainly gorgeous and she brings happiness to his dreary hospital. She immediately befirends several of the patients and proves invaluable in the sickroom and soon Piers finds himself offering to teach her to swim. Seeing her in nothing but a wet chemise makes it all too clear that Piers is not impotent and he sees the need to make it clear to her that he will not marry her and she agrees that she would never marry him. But the two spend more time together, both during swimming lessons, and while Piers is grousing at patients that Linnet is trying to help, and neither can resist the other. Sparks fly between them, but Piers still refuses to admit that there is a possible future with Linnet, even while she finds that she is falling in love with her grumpy lover. When his mother begins to forgive his father, Piers clings even more tightly to his unhappiness and throws Linnet out. Only when it is a matter of life and death does he come to his senses and realizes he would do anything, risk anything, to win back the woman he loves.

I was initially worried about Linnet because the first chapter was all about how beautiful and perfect and well liked she was. But she did become real as the book progressed and I was able to see her faults and that there was a real person who had feelings, and cared about others' happiness, underneath the very beautiful facade. She was definitely not very self aware as she did spend a good portion of the book convinced that Piers was not the right man for her even as it was obvious she was falling in love with him. It was nice to see that she was able to stand up to the gossip and survive on her own. Piers was not so likeable, and that is the god's honest truth, because he was certainly miserable and unhappy and seemed to do his best to be completely unlikeable and make everyone around him as miserable as he was. Yes, he was in immense pain because of his injury, yes he had to deal with some lying and miserable patients, but I just wanted to slap him and tell him to smile. He was even less self-aware than Linnett with his bad attitude and insistence they wouldn't suit in the face of the truth.

While I could see what he saw in her, because she was caring and considerate to the patients, I really did not see what she saw in him. He was intelligent in regards to the medical profession, but the brief moments when they were together and happy doesn't equal a lasting and caring relationship to me. Other authors have done unhappy heroes much better and the heroes have ended up changing/ redeeming themselves throughout the book, but in this instance there was just one very dramatic incident at the end where Piers had to prove his love and how much he had changed. I was definitely not impressed to find out that Piers was based on my least favorite television character, Dr. House, who, to me, represents everything that is wrong with the medical profession and makes me fear going to meet a new doctor. I really did enjoy the side plot about the romance between his mother and father and it really rang true and was quite heart rending to read about a man who was desperately trying to make up for the many mistakes he had made when he was addicted to opium; it was very moving.

Rating: One character that I liked and one that I absolutely loathed did not lead for a good romance, but the writing was lively and amusing and fast so it might be worth a try.