Undone (A Fiery Tale)

Undone (A Fiery Tale) by Lila DiPasqua

Simon Boulenger is working as a privateer for France during the war against Spain and hoping that one day he will earn a knighthood and become a member of the aristocracy. Growing up dirt poor and alone left him desirous of a better future and he has worked his entire life to achieve a peerage. While in Italy he spies a beautiful woman singing an enchanting song and when he follows her to a convent he sees the Mother Superior abusing her. He quickly grabs her and her friend and whisks them back to his ship, determined to save her. But Angelica has no desire to be saved and is horrified when she discovers that she is on a boat back to her homeland. For years she has hidden in the convent from her stepfather, a French aristocrat placed high in the court of Louis XIV, who abused her horribly while she was in his charge. When she wakes up onboard a ship she knows she must hide her identity from the handsome captain who has kidnapped her, but she cannot resist the attraction that flares between them. Simon is taken in by Angelica's charms, but knowing that she is a virgin means he keeps his hands off of her even though he has never felt this way about a woman before.

Simon and his crew own an island in the Caribbean, Marguerite, and have formed a kind of commune there with Simon as their leader, where everyone lives in freedom and equality away from the strict hierarchy of the French court. He takes Angelica there and she quickly becomes popular with everyone in the community by taking on the role of teacher and winning the island beauty pageant. She decides that she will take advantage of the freedom and this brief chance of happiness and decides to seduce/ give into Simon and his seduction. Simon cannot help but feel guilty, but is surprised to find that Angelica is keeping a secret from him and when it is revealed he knows that he must avenge her and the wrong that her step father did. Simon has his own score to settle back in France with the King's finance minister and in one final act of gallantry he sets aside his own desires for the good of France and to make Angelica happy. Angelica knows that the only thing that matters is a life with Simon, aristocracy be damned, and together they forge a future on their tropical island paradise.

Angelica was a hard character for me to explore because she seemed completely unable to make up her own mind about what she was like. She ran away from her horrible situation and France and escaped to a convent where she planned to stay, hidden away from the world for the rest of her life and I could really not get behind that. She, like many romance novel heroines, had a magical touch with children and fancied herself their savior and was apparently able to take over a school at a moment's notice and win the hearts of all the previous little kids. As a teacher this annoys me. Unfortunately Simon was equally hard to like as a pirate and as a person obsessed with gaining a title even while creating his own little commune type paradise island. He was, of course, a womanizer, but he immediately gave up his ways after laying eyes on Angelica once. Together there was an immense sexual attraction that burned up the pages with the sizzle but was a bit of a let down towards the end once the relationship had been consummated as the sex didn't live up to expectations.

Their relationship was also hard to truly get behind as there was a lot of misunderstanding, a lot of holding something back from each other, and just generally a lot of brooding and frustration. I admired how Angelica was able to move past her attack and lead a full life and that Simon helped her through this and supported her once he realized what had happened. And I enjoyed reading a little bit about French history in a romance novel and, although much is fiction, it still provided a nice variation from my usual English books. There was the small bit of intrigue involving revenge against her step father and Simon's determination to bring down those close to the King who were out to do harm against the people. It was not overwhelming, but did seem to come up at weird moments throughout the book before finally being solved quite neatly at the end. The island commune was absolutely laughable and I rolled my eyes every time the magical Marguerite was mentioned.

Rating: An interesting book but not for the romance or the characters, but for the historical information and back ground.

When the Duchess Said Yes

When the Duchess Said Yes by Isabella Bradford 1021

Elizabeth Wylder and the Duke of Hawkesworth were engaged in a very complicated and very binding contract between their fathers but while Lizzie is amenable to the marriage Hawke delays their meeting, and marriage, by running off to Italy for ten years. The former Duke had been a paragon, admired by everyone, and a model of British peerage while being active in the house of Lords, and Hawke has no intention of ever following in his father's footsteps. He amuses himself in Naples buying paintings and dallying with beautiful women and his distant marriage is just a cloud upon the horizon until the time constraints set upon their union rush up. He decides that he will go to England, marry this English rose and after promptly impregnating her he will head back to Naples and live his own life just like his parents had done. But once in England he is finds himself intrigued by a mystery woman he spots and ends up kissing in a garden and neglects his fiance. He is shocked to discover that his beautiful mystery woman is his fiance but realizes this will make their marriage all the more enjoyable.

Lizzie is upset that her fiance has supposedly abandoned her and even more so when she discovers that he had been kissing strange ladies while he was supposed to be meeting her, even if the strange lady is her. However, she cannot deny her immense attraction to her fiance and that is the major impetuous for the speediness with which they plan their marriage. While Lizzie and Hawke begin their wedded life with plenty of time in the bedroom while staying in near seclusion at his estate, friends and family begin to wonder if they can have ever have a true marriage. Lizzie is blinded by her newfound love for her husband and by thoughts of the life they can have together so she does not recognize that Hawke has been neglecting his duties as an English lord until she is forced to. When she discovers that Hawke has every intention of returning to Naples without her once she is pregnant she realizes that the life she had imagined for them is but a myth and only when he is confronted with the possible loss of his wife does Hawke understand that home is wherever Lizzie is, weather in Naples or England.

Lizzie was very open and fun and trusting, and while this could be attributed to her young age, I felt like Bradford did an excellent job making it clear that that was just the type of person Lizzie was. She was caring and anxious and a very real person and I felt like her emotions surrounding her arranged marriage created a very real character. Hawke was very stubborn and I quickly became frustrated with his inability to move beyond his long held beliefs about marriage and see how much Lizzie was falling in love with him and vice versa. I am tired of the heroes who are scared of marriage; every possible reason for their fear has been so overdone and annoys me now. I enjoyed reading about their relationship because they were obviously falling in love with each other and they enjoyed being together and doing little things to make the other happy. They had a lot of common interests and really meshed well as a couple which made his hard headedness even more frustrating.

Lizzie and Hawke certainly enjoyed each other's company in the bedroom and the sparks flew between from the very first kiss to the very last page. The sex was hot and frequent and while it didn't stray from the usual romance novel fare I enjoyed really being able to sense how much these two wanted to jump each other constantly. My favorite part of the novel was watching her grow as she moved beyond the carefree single gal to a bona fide duchess who wanted to take on her responsibilities and expected her husband to be by her side. It was a really well done bit of character development that made it easy to forget how young she truly was. The issue of his returning to Italy was a big problem for me because so much was made of it but then it was glossed over so quickly as the ending kind of came rushing up. However, I did like how they compromised together at the end to make a life that was perfect for both of them and it really made it clear how great they were for each other. The book was very well written and I was super surprised to learn that the author is also an author of great historical fiction that I have also enjoyed.

Rating: A super fast, fun read with a wonderful heroine and a well written relationship with some sizzling attraction but a hero I could not entirely fall for.

One Night Scandal

One Night Scandal by Christie Kelley 1117

Sophie Reynard is one of the ton's most sought after matchmakers because of her skills as a medium that allow her to read into other's futures and see their perfect match. Despite her friendship with some of the most powerful men and women of society she is not completely accepted because she is a bastard who was never claimed by her father, even though the rumor is that he is a powerful Earl. Sophie's mother has taken care of her as best she knows how but that does not stop her from running off every time a new man catches her fancy. Sophie is in Venice visiting her mother, who has run off with an Italian count, when an accident lands her in one of the canals. A handsome stranger rescues her and takes her back to his house to care for her and Sophie is shocked when she sees her rescuer in her future and believes that he is the one. Nicholas Tenbury, the Marquess of Ancroft, finds himself falling for the beautiful woman he has rescued and believes her to be Italian so he has no qualms about making her believe the same about him.

Knowing he is meant for her Sophie gives herself to him for a night and is horrified to read a letter he keeps that reveals his identity and that he is in love with one of her friends. She runs away and hopes never to see him even though she knows it is inevitable since he is related to many and is friends with all of her friends in London. Nic cannot forget the woman he spent the night with in Venice and it is not long before he discovers her identity and wants to find a way to ensure that she never abandons him again. Sophie decides she must help Nicholas find his own match because she no longer sees him, or sees anyone at all, in her future. Thus ensures several attempts by Sophie to throw women at Nicholas despite it breaking her heart every time she contemplates him being with someone else. The two have difficult keeping their hands off each other but Sophie knows that she will never be accepted by the ton and would not make a proper wife for Nicholas. Nicholas has to show Sophie that their pasts do not matter but it is their future together that is what they need to focus on.

I am not into paranormal romances and while this wasn't precisely other-worldly I do not get into, or really believe in, people who can "read" other's futures. That made it really difficult to appreciate Sophie because her entire self was built around her unique gift and she placed such immense importance on what she saw. There were many obstacles she threw up between her and Nick and her inability to see him in her future was particularly ridiculous to me and I just found myself rolling my eyes every time this  particular reason came up. I could not get a read on Sophie's character at all because of the obstacles she kept throwing up and at the end it seemed like the only time I got into Sophie's head she was bemoaning her belief that she could never be with Nick. There was always one reason or another why she felt she was not qualified to be a marchioness and I wondered if it was the only thing she was capable of thinking about. While her background and experiences made her actions understandable, it got to be incredibly annoying and it just came across as an excuse to prolong the novel.

Nick had father issues that left him feeling undeserving of love so Sophie's attempts to distance him played right into his feelings of inadequacy. Rather than explore this aspect of the story, it was brushed over and Nick played right along with Sophie in the attempts to find him a wife. I could not figure out precisely why he was so desperate to have Sophie and no other or even why she was in love with him. I got so little from either of these characters and could not figure out what their interests were or what they had going for them. The sex was pretty hot and there was a decent amount of it but it didn't make up for the overall lackluster, and slow, quality of the romance. They both had a lot of friends, friends who were all main characters in Kelley's other books and I quickly became bored of having it shoved down my throat how happy they all were with each other. It quickly went from showing us how happy they were to having them become just as important in this story as the main characters. I also felt like it would have been really difficult to understand this story without having read her previous works.

Rating: A boring book with far too many made up obstacles thrown in their path and far too many appearances by previous characters.