How to Wed a Baron

How to Wed a Baron by Kasey Michaels 1218

Justing Wilde, the Bad Baron, does what the Prince Regent tells him to as he needs to receive a full pardon for a duel where he killed a man who had slept with his wife. Even though he paid an enormous sum to the Regent he does not expect that to be the end of anything and his fears are confirmed when he is told he must marry the King of Austria's ward, Lady Alina. From the first moment he sees her coming down the gangblank off her ship, he knows that Lady Aline is special and that life will never be the same. Alina hopes to escape her aunt back in Austria after her father and mother both died when she was young, and she hopes to meet her mother's English family. Justin knows there has to be a catch and is not surprised to learn that Alina is the niece of the man he killed in the duel and that there is someone out to kill her. Her guard, Luka, informs him that she has a tenuous claim to a strip of land that is also desired by the Inhabar Novak. He figures out that he supposed to kill the Inhabar for going after Alina, taking the blame from the Austrian King and eventually be hung for murder by his own Regent.

He has to keep Alina safe and he engineers a complex series of instructions that leads him from one house to another, hiding with his friends and their wives. He meanwhile is running around the country trying to meet with the Regent himself and with the Inhabar and he rendezvous with her and her entourage while at a gypsy encampment. She can see that there is something Justin is hiding from her and even though he claims they cannot possibly have a happy life together, she wants to go through with their marriage- after they have settled all of the problems surrounding her. He is furious with himself as he knows he has to kill the Inhabar in order to keep the woman he loves safe, but he also knows that he in turn will be killed for doing so. He tries to think of ways for them to be together, but continues to make arrangements for her after he dies. However, things are not as they appear and there is someone who has been lying to them about Alina and only when Justin puts a stop to that man can he hope that Alina and he will be able to have their happily ever after.

I felt like neither Alina nor Justin was a completely developed character and there were so many holds in this story. We learned about them through the assassination plot but it really did not serve as a complete picture of who they were or why they fell in love with each other or why I should like to read about them. Alina liked pretty things, she found Justin very attractive, and in an act far too stupid to live, she stepped out of a carriage in the middle of a shootout because she though she could shoot back. I was willing to overlook that because it was supposed to show that she wasn't a simpering miss, but when that is all we're really shown of a character it's hard to remain interested. Justin is of course the tortured hero dealing with his dark past as an exiled lord trying to get back in his sovereign's good graces by killing traitors and enemies. He spent so much tim shipping her off to friends and running around trying to figure out what was going on, that I felt like he didn't spend enough time with Alina for them to fall in love, and not enough non- intrigue inspired time for my tastes.

The sex between them was very hot and well written, even if it was too brief and near the end was hinted at and then cut away before anything exciting happens- that really annoys me. In Michaels typical style there is a lot of banter in this book; between Justin and Alina, between Justin and his foppish manservant, Wigglesworth, between Justin and the Regent, between everyone really. I did not really like it in her previous works but in this one it served as some much needed lightheartedness in the midst of so much murder and mayhem. However, it did serve to make Justin seem rather frivolous and there were times I wanted him to hold a genuine conversation with someone that was not just about assassinations. Secondary characters, especially Wigglesworth, were absolutely wonderful and written about enough to be humorous but not enough to get annoying. I do wish there had not been so much wonderfulness surrounding characters from previous novels, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The murder/ assassination plot was very well done and had the most intriguing twist to it but it really did completely take over the book.

Rating: I didn't dislike the book, but I did not precisely have fun reading it because there was far too much I didn't like and not enough that I did.

How to Beguile a Beauty

How to Beguile a Beauty by Kasey Michaels 716

A year before the story starts Tanner Blake, Duke of Malvern, comes home to England to tell Lady Lydia Daughtry that her fiance, Captain Fitzpatrick, has died. Before his death, Fitz, had tasked Tanner with taking care of Lydia and had in fact basically told him to marry her. But Lydia is shy and reserved and takes time getting over the man she thought was the love of her life and Tanner is not sure how to go about wooing he. In addition he can't help but feel guilty about taking over from where Fitz left off and once he finally realizes that he genuinely wants Lydia he worries that she will think he only wants her because Fitz asked him to. Lydia is worried about all the new changes going on in her life as her wild twin sister Nicole is getting married and begins to think that she needs to start taking some risks in her life as well. Starting with enjoying the company of both Tanner and his friend, the rakish Justin Wilde as the go on a trip.

Tanner is semi-engaged to his cousin, Jasmine, a chatterbox who has convinced everyone she is completely airheaded. However, on their journey Lydia begins to think that Jasmine is hiding some secrets and while she enjoys some verbal sparing with Justin, it is Tanner she is falling in love with. While Tanner and Justin are looking to discover who has been switching out the Malvern jewels with paste, Lydia and Tanner take opportunities to go riding, get to know each other, and find ways to sneak off. But when Jasmine turns up at night with a bruise on her cheek Lydia confronts her and discovers that she is in the middle of quite the jewel heist/ little lovers quarrel. She wants to spend as much time with Tanner as possible and get to know his estate, as it is where she plans to spend the rest of her life and raise her children, but everyone first needs to resolve the issue as their is a murderous jewel thief on the loose.

I did not have very high hopes for this after reading How to Tame a Lady which I really did not like and especially did not like her heroine. While Lydia is the complete opposite of Nicole, as she is quiet and contemplative and likes to read and spend time in the country, it was still rather hard to get a handle on her. One minute she was thinking she needed to completely revamp her life and then she was completely ready to settle down for a life in the country. One second she was flirting with Justin and then all of a suddens she was deeply in love with Tanner. And her falling in love with Tanner was done rather abruptly and a little oddly; it was a very calm love that just kind of overtook both of them, and once again I wasn't completely sure what to make of it. Tanner was not any easier as he seemed to genuinely care about Lydia, but he didn't want her to feel indebted to him so he agrees to let Justin flirt with her so that she can have a choice.

Once again my biggest problem with her writing is the "banter" that takes place between her characters. Maybe people back then really talked like this so this makes me an anti-realist, but I just could not stand it. It came across as blabbering about nothing, didn't further the plot, and was just rather boring- I kept trying to think of it as flirting but that did not really work. Luckily, it didn't take up as much room in this book as it did her other as I would have just been forced to put it down. The best part of this book was Jasmine, the devious and yet somehow completely addle-brained cousin who really remained a complete mystery throughout the book. She lied, she disappeared, she tricked people, and was just overall very hard to peg and a fun addition the book. The jewel thieving was also very interesting, unfortunately more so than the romance.

Rating: I found myself enjoying Jasmine and the jewels more than Tanner and Lydia, which was sad as individually I did like these two characters. Probably 2 1/2 hearts.

How to Tame a Lady

How to Tame a Lady by Kasey Michaels

From their very first meeting Lady Nicole Daughtry and Lucas Paine, Marquess of Basingstoke, they are very intrigued with each other. The two engage in an interesting little conversation about puddles that confuses those around them but sends a message that they are like two peas in a pod. They both want to see more of the other and the fact that Lucas is a close friend of Rafe, Nicole's brother, and uses this to his advantage. He escorts Nicole to balls, on long carriage rides where he scandalously allows her to control the reins, and to the opera. It is at the opera that Nicole discovers that Rafe has been keeping a secret from her as he secretly meets with another man. Years earlier Lucas' father had been accused of treason and then shot himself before a trial could occur. The scandal has tainted Lucas and his family ever since but when a letter arrives informing him that the charges against his father were fake, Lucas is determined to find out what exactly this person means. So he agrees to go along with Lord Fayne's plans to help incite a riot in the hopes that the masses behavior would lead to more restrictive and prohibitive laws.

Nicole is horrified that Lucas would put himself in danger like that and it reinforces her belief that she never wants to fall in love or rely on another person for her sense of self worth. Her own mother has gone from husband to husband and in general behaves very scandalously in public; carrying on affairs and even encouraging Nicole to have sex with Lucas. Lucas is unable to go through with his plans as he is very sensitive to the hardships of being a member of England's poor right after the war and at a time of great weather upheaval. Lord Fayne is furious and threatens to go public with information that Nicole's mother gave him when they were engaged in an affair regarded Rafe's succession to the dukedom. The two escort Nicole's mother to Dover so she can spend the next year in Italy out of everyone's way and on the way home Nicole and Lucas take advantage of some privacy in an inn to reveal secrets and get to know each other a lot better. Together the two of them must find someway of preventing the Daughtry family secrets from being exposed and some way of stopping the mad revolt on London and if in the process they both realize they love each- then so much the better.

The first thing I noticed about the book was the awkward, confusing, and plain weird conversation Lucas and Nicole had. From the puddle discussion that intrigued them and left Nicole's sister, Lydia, and Lucas' friend, Fletcher, puzzled their conversations continued in the same vein. Maybe it was supposed to be banter, I do not know, but it was odd that it supposedly was part of the reason they intrigued each other so much yet ended up just being frustrating to me. And the heroine has what I have to call very severe mood swings; she's fun and happy being frivolous, she's full of anger at Lucas for something (oftentimes ridiculous), she wants to jump his bones, she's worried she'll end up like her mother, she's frivolous again, she's angsty over Lucas believing she's frivolous, etc... And the bit about her being frivolous was just too overdrawn although I guess since we were supposed to be comparing her to her bookish sister we were supposed to assume she was frivolous. Luckily they did not make her too frivolous as she, like Lucas, had feelings for the common man, and was at least self- aware enough to recognize her faults and to reflect on what she wants to improve and how she wants to live her life.

Even though I found most of the conversations I still liked that it was very obvious that these two had a lot in common and that their falling in love was very believable and very obviously meant to be. I was a bit surprised as I felt Michaels set the reader up for a romance between the sister, Lydia, but it did not happen and I was rather disappointed- hopefully someday soon. The side plot of the rabble of London was very well done and I really liked that it was a book about socially conscious people who did want to help and do what they could. And given that Lucas felt this way because the poor were often soldiers he had faught "with" against Napoleon it was far more believable and enjoyable to read about than society misses who want to found an orphanage because they're so helpful and nice. There was some very nice steam going on here and I liked how attracted to each other the character were put it was a bit of a letdown as it was set up very nicely but then disappointed with innuendos and allusions to what was happening.

Rating: I enjoyed this book as I enjoyed the romance and the plot, but found Nicole to be far from my liking as it was very difficult to really like her. And the heroine is a pretty important part of a romance novel.