How to Lose a Bride in One Night

How to Lose a Bride in One Night by Sophie Jordan

Annalise Hadley lived in relative obscurity until her father, Jack Hadley, appeared out of nowhere and decided to invest part of his vast fortune toward marrying her, and her numerous half-sisters, off to members of the aristocracy. Annalise knows she is not beautiful and she has suffered a limp since a childhood accident, but she is hard working and kind. She is shocked and flattered when the Duke of Bloodsworth, the most eligible bachelor of the ton, picks her to be his bride but it turns out he only wanted her for her money- a fact she discovers when he tries to smother her and throws her overboard their wedding barge. Owen Crawford, Earl of MacDowell, is stunned to find a half-dead woman floating in the river and immediately takes her to the nearest shelter he can find even if it is a gypsy caravan. Owen has given up on ever being a normal human after living for years as an asassin in India and lives on the outskirts of his own family but something about this young woman draws him in.

When she awakes Annalise claims to have amnesia to avoid Owen bringing her back to Bloodworth and she wants to be up and out of bed as soon as possible as she hates feeling helpless. Owen is determined that she heal properly and appoints himself her nursemaid, even while rejecting the Gypsy's claim that she belongs to him now that he has saved her life. When it is finally time to leave the caravan he takes Annalise to his estate, planning to send her away once she is fully recovered. But when she asks him to teach her how to defend herself he can't help but wonder what secrets she is hiding and finds that he wants to know more about her. Annalise is falling for the handsome man who rescued her and who makes her feel safe for the first time in a long time. With Annalise's help Owen rediscovers the man he used to be and reunites with his family and with Owen's help, Annalise finally finds herself able to confront her past. Together, they know they are safe and can handle anything the world throws at them.

This installment in the Forgotten Princesses series featuring the illegitimate daughters of the wealthy Jack Hadley, neatly avoided falling into the series trap of focusing too much on past characters which I really admired. Sophie writes fun and very readable books that are quickly devoured and her written style is easy and flows nicely. Annalise was a wonderful character; strong and scared, caring and determined. I loved how Jordan portrayed Annalise as a victim of domestic violence who went from fear of the world to a determination to better herself and prevent it from ever happening again. Owen is a tortured hero with a buried past and a problem with connecting with other people. His past is certainly sufficient to creating such a character and I enjoyed reading about him overcoming his own fears and learning to accept himself and his past and looking toward the future. I liked that Owen helped Annalise overcome her fears and she helped him overcome his own, more buried, fears.

I could feel the heat between these two from the beginning, fairly scorching the pages, but unfortunately it ended up being a huge let down and they did not burn up the sheets anywhere near often enough.  I was frustrated towards the end when Annalise naively gave into blackmail from Bloodsworth just because he threatened Owen when she should have known perfectly well that Owen could take care of himself. She'd seen him fight people! It brought my opinion of Annalise down quite a few notches and came across like an attempt to create a big dramatic confrontational ending. The ending was of course everything it should have been and neatly wrapped everything up with a big bow, but I didn't feel like it was completely predictable because there were some added plot twists.

Rating: An enjoyable book that had much promise, but a generic ending and the letdown of going from such scorching flirting to one mild mannered bedding brought this book down.

Lessons From a Scandalous Bride

Lessons from a Scandalous Bride by Sophie Jordan

Cleopatra grew up in poverty watching her mother bear and bury babies year after year because her cruel stepfather could not control himself. She is determined never to subject herself to that sort of life and her opinion does not change when her long lost father shows up and offers her riches beyond imagining. Cleo goes to live with Jack Hadley and he is willing to do anything to ensure his three long lost daughters marry into the peerage. Because of her desire to avoid the marriage bed and childbirth she settles for the aged, and crippled, Lord Thrumgoodie, even though her dowry could attract other men and his own family members believe her a whoring title-hunter. She hopes that once she is married she will have the financial independence to provide for her half-siblings and her mother and save them from her stepfather. Lord Logan McKinney is in London to find himself a heiress so he can use her finds to renovate his crumbling Scottish estate. His sister points him in the direction of Libba, granddaughter of Thrumgoodie, but it is Libba's future step-grandma who catches his attention.

Cleo is beautiful and withdrawn and she pulls at Logan in a way no other woman ever have, but he cannot figure out why she is choosing someone old and entirely unlike herself. Logan is everything that Cleo wishes to avoid; handsome, young, virile, and he draws her far too much for her own good so she does everything she can to avoid being with him and giving into the feelings she has for him. Logan sets out to woo Cleo and convince her that an old man is no match for her lively spirit and finds that the easies way to do this is to seduce her. With no choice left Cleo tells Logan about her childhood and how she shouldered the responsibility of her household and lost so many brother's and sisters, but he knows that running away from her fears is not what Cleo should do. When the two of them are caught in a compromising position he believes he has found his time to help Cleo through her fears and show her that life can be happy when two partners work with each other for their mutual benefit. Cleo must overcome her fears and learn to trust someone else and when she does it will be Logan who is there to help her.

Cleo was strong and responsible and scared and flawed and I loved that it was the heroine who had a haunted past that scared her from marriage instead of the hero. Her fear of becoming pregnant and having her babies die was a very scary reality that women faced in those days and I can really see why someone would be incredibly scared of that, especially because of her experiences. It was a much more realistic reason to be scared of marriage than the half-assed explanations heroes use in most romance novels. Logan was very self aware and confident and he went after what he wanted. I really liked Logan because he wasn't scared of his feelings for Cleo and treated her well while he was pursuing her without coddling her fears. He didn't apologize for being a fortune hunter because he knew he was doing what was best for his family and his estate, but he didn't allow himself to feel guilty for what he was doing. I loved Logan and Cleo together because they were each strong where the other wasn't so strong and they complimented each other in that sense.

They spent a lot of time together and they had a lot of opportunities to explore each other's pasts and learn about the other and once they got to his estate it was easy to see how well they worked together and how their future would play out. There was a super strong attraction between these two and they had tremendous difficulty keeping their hands off each other even though Cleo was desperately trying to fight it. There was not a lot of sex and it was all in the second half of the book and much of it was cut short, but their was just a sense of lust throughout the book so it felt like the book was far sexier than it actually was. I really enjoyed this book because there was no side plot or murder or anything of that nature, but because these two each had such a well developed history there was still a lot going on in this book and it never felt lacking. The writing was as fast and fun as Jordan always is and the novel flowed very naturally and was very well written.

Rating: A wonderful book with two very enjoyable characters with a very strong relationship in a novel that was a joy to read.

Wicked in Your Arms

Wicked in Your Arms by Sophie Jordan 731

Grier Hadley is the bastard daughter of the very rich Jack Hadley, and after years of neglect Jack decides that his illegitimate daughters are the way into polite society. He launches them with the help of the Dowager Duchess of Bolingbroke, whose titled family is completely broke, and hopes that one of the very wealthy, if not completely acceptable girls, will marry her younger son. But Grier and her sister Cleo are not welcomed with open arms and people talk about them and their father openly. But when Grier overhears Sevastian, the future King of Maldonia, completely dismiss her as a possibility for a wife she sees red and causes a scene. Sevastian knows his duty is to find a respectable and very wealthy to bring back to his kingdom, which is nearly bankrupt after a ten year long war that claimed that lives of most of Sevastian's family. He cannot get the completely inappropriate, the boisterous, the beautiful Grier out of his head even while he is trying to go about his duty of finding a wife, with the help of his cousin, Malcolm, whose family was banished from Maldonia years ago.

A house party throws them together in close proximity and both hope to continue their search for a spouse, even while they cannot seem to avoid thinking about the other. Grier finds Sevastian attraction, but she regards him as spoiled and selfish, just like all the other members of the ton who look down their noses at her. But as she gets to know him she realizes that he is just as much at the whim of his family as she is; her father is forcing her to marry a member of the ton and his family needs him to marry someone respectable. Horseback rides in the morning, midnight escapades on the balcony, and an eye opening encounter where she discovers that Sevastian looks out for those beneath him socially, and Grier cannot deny her feelings. Sevastian admires her spirit, her love of the outdoors and physical pursuits, and her confidence in the face of those who look down on her. But because of their standings and their past there are those who don't believe that they belong together and together they must defy the odds and convince themselves, and others, that they are perfect together.

I am typically not interested in romances featuring princes from made up countries, making him pennliess and in desperate need of a titled wife to bring respect back to his kingdom, made it more interesting to read about. Sevastian was proud and arrogant and yet it was also clear that he had a huge heart and cared about others, even if there were times where I felt the author was just trying to force his "goodness" down our throat. I loved how he completely disregarded Grier because he did want to follow through on his commitments and that he was really almost unapologetic about what he was looking for. It made his eventual change to loving Grier that much more sweet and it was really nice to read about him letting go of some of his prejudices and being confident enough in himself and his place to marry Grier. Grier was also a really fun character because she wanted to be loved and accepted so much for who she was and I loved that she recognized that she deserved all of that. She stood up for herself when Sev was rude and more than held her own, but she also was comfortable enough to admit her feelings when they changed.

There was a lot going against Grier and Sevastian because of their status in society and I think Jordan did a really good job explaining why they were moving in the same circles. Their pasts influenced who they were and how they went about falling in love with each other and there was some really well developed back story given for both of them. Their relationship progressed wonderfully; they spent a lot of time really getting to know each other and they fell in love with the other person completely. The sex was lukewarm but there was a decent amount of it grouped towards the end because they were tring so hard to fight the attraction they felt for each other. Their was also a little surprise twist that happened at the end so I don't really want to go into too much detail, but it was really well integrated into the story and made enough sense that I understood where it was coming from even while I wasn't expecting it. This book is part of a series so there were, of course, references to previous books in the series that were not overwhelming, and some really nice lead ins for the next book in the series.

Rating: Two really well done characters whose relationship progressed in such an enjoyable way and the book was certainly a very fast read.

Wicked Nights With a Lover

Wicked Nights With a Lover by Sophie Jordan 1213

Marguerite Laurent leads a quiet life as an end of life nurse until one of her patients hires a fortune teller who foretells Marguerite's death, but only after she marries a man who is desperately in love with her. She is at first skeptical but when other things the fortune teller had predicted come true she worries that she has only a short amount of time left and has not lived her life to the fullest. When she goes to visit the fortune teller she is confronted by a very dark and handsome brute of a man who spends brief moments with her in a carriage, awakening passions she never knew she had, before disappearing. Ash Courtland grew up on the streets of St. Giles and managed to claw his way out of the gutter with the help of Jack Hannigan, the king of the London's underworld. He built quite a fortune for himself and Jack and he is furious when he discovers that Jack plans on leaving his half of the fortune to his three illegitimate daughters- after he marries them off to peers of the realm.

Jack is determined not to let this come to pass and he decides to kidnap one of Jack's daughters and marry her himself. Marguerite has no love for her father, but she does answer his summons, only to find herself kidnapped by the dark and handsome stranger she had met outside the fortune teller's house. Jack proposes a very reasonable marriage that offers her freedom and she can't deny her attraction for him, but she cannot get the prediction of her death out of her mind. She can't prevent herself from succumbing to Jack's overtures and spending so much time with him on the way up to Scotland she begins to think that this might be one risk taking. Jack cannot figure out why Marguerite cannot make up her mind about whether she wants to marry him or run away from him. When she finally makes her decision she is left with the knowledge she may have sealed her own fate and it is only now that she fully realizes how much she has to live for. She would do anything to prevent her untimely death so she can live a full life with Ash, even cheat fate.

 The novel is fairly short; although it is a full 374 pages it has large type, large line spacing, and each chapter ends with a blank page. I felt while writing this review that I did not have very much to right about and really the bulk of the review was just set up for them finally meeting and beginning their relationship. I loved that Marguerite was a truly independent woman with a career and was making a go of it, however I found the attempt to fill her life with friends a tad weak as neither friend made an appearance and it felt like it was an attempt to bring past heroines into this novel. However, it set up her meeting with her two half-sisters very well and that was an element of the story that was very well done, if a little too briefly. I am rarely one for paranormal plots and fortune telling falls into that category for me but here I liked that it was more just a fun little way to get Marguerite to take a chance on life and set up her full leap into her relationship with Ash. I did not like that it served as the major sticking point in that relationship as well, as it just seemed a little too crazy.

We got only a brief backstory into Ash and his demons and I liked it better that way as it was just enough for me to gain insight into his actions and his feelings about Jack's betrayal. He was really just a typical romance novel hero from the wrong side of the track who wanted the girl whose parents didn't like him. Their trip up to Scotland was fun and lively providing plenty of opportunity for the two of them to get to know each other and talk. However, Marguerite also went through some very quick mind changes with agreeing to marry him and then changing her mind several times. She made an unbelievable amount of escape attempts and was, of course, waylaid by Ash who wasted no time taking her in hand. There were also some issues involving Ash being so scared of his feelings that he made some big mistakes that lead to an overdone emotional mess at the end, complete with dead relatives beckoning from a white light. There was some decent sex between the two, nothing too exciting, but the two of them were very obviously attracted to each other.

Rating: A very fun and fast book with two interesting if not spectacular characters. The book was satisfying, but nothing special.

Surrender to Me

Surrender to Me by Sophie Jordan 518

When Lady Astrid Derring receives an anonymous note that her runaway husband is in Scotland impersonated anther man and about to marry some other poor woman, she hightails it to Scotland to put a stop to things. Six years ago the Duke of Derring had been suspected of forgery and had promptly stolen all of his wife's jewelry and all of the family's assets and abandoned Astrid. On her way up to Scotland her carriage is stopped by highwayman who are only stopped when Griffin Shaw, a Texan on a mission, sees what is happening and promptly shoots all the villains. Unfortunately he is hurt during the encounter and since she feels responsible Astrid takes Griffin with her on her journey. She can't help but notice how attractive the man is and how he inspires feelings in her she has never known before. He is intrigued by this icy maiden who travels without her husband. When she leaves him to go confront her husband only a lucky escape saves her as someone she cannot see comes into his hotel and promptly strangles him.

Astrid runs away and Griffin makes it clear to her that she needs to get out of Scotland as soon as possible as she will be the first suspect, and he offers to accompany her. But they are waylaid by Highlanders who take Astrid hostage and she is convinced that Griffin will count his loses and leave her to her fate. When he comes back for her she knows it is because there is something between them. Griffin is horrified by the way Astrid insists on trying to control everything even when it just ends up getting them in trouble and he hates the cold and emotionless exterior she presents to the real world. He wants to break through it, make her laugh, make her scream his name in bed. He finds that with Astrid he can share things that other people would hate about him. When he discovers the truth about his heritage Astrid knows that she must, for once, throw thoughts about duty and honor away and take a chance on what she needs and hope that Griffin will want her too.

Astrid is incredibly cold, rather bull headed, and does not know when to keep her mouth shut. If pride is a sin that she is incredibly guilty, but it makes sense because that is how she was raised and that was the only thing she had left after her husband abandoned her. And I love that Griffin can see past all that and try to get to the person beneath it. It's almost like a role reversal as usually it's the hero who has a crusty exterior and a soft interior. Her pride can definitely get irritating though and sometimes I definitely wanted to smack her- there really is a line you know and when Griffin is trying to save your ass- there's your line. Sometimes I wanted her to be right and Griffin to be wrong though- maybe there could have been a nicer way to teach her that she isn't always right than having her always be wrong. I was also rather irritated that we didn't discover until over halfway through Griffin's true reason for coming to Scotland the reason for his somewhat crusty exterior- and it's rather dumb to be honest (he couldn't save a random woman he'd never met who walked around during the heat of battle.)

The sex between these to is fantastic and super hot, though as usual there is not enough of it, but Astrid's fear of losing her pride always makes her thrust a barrier between them afterwards. I really would have liked to see them really getting along together without all the stuff between them. Sometimes I became quite frustrated with the way that she was hot and then super cold and how for so much of the book she put duty ahead of herself. I absolutely loved the little twist where we discovered the truth about Griffin's past and, although rather out of left field, it was certainly fun and provided a great impetuous for Astrid to for once do something for herself. It was quite beautiful too when she made her decision. Bertram was an altogether unsavory character who luckily wasn't with this world long and I loved that the person who killed him was completely nonchalant about it and no one really care- no great hoohah over what had happened.

Rating: Well, I really liked Griffin and I liked the changes that Astrid underwent throughout the book but it was certainly not up to par with most of her other books. Pretty average.

Sins of a Wicked Duke

Sins of a Wicked Duke by Sophia Jordan

Fallon O'Rourke had a difficult childhood; after her father died on a fool's errand for a selfish lord she was sent to a girls school where she was singled out by the headmaster for her fiery hair. Unfortunately the real world is not going much better as she has been let go by employer after employer because the man of the house cannot keep his hands off her. After one particularly awful firing she accepts a ride from the dissolute Dominic Hale, the Duke of Damon, to her hotel and it proves to be quite eye-opening. He engages in some very dissolute behavior with two prostitutes while she is in the carriage before informing her that she is welcome at his place anytime. She runs away, determined to stay away from him. Fallon decides that the best way for her to get a job will be to disguise herself as a man, but she is shocked when the woman at the agency sends "Francis" to the Duke's house for employment as a footman. She is quite unimpressed with the Duke's behavior as night after night of drunkenness and debauchery follow her employment.

Fallon is undeniably horrified, yet cannot help the attraction she feels for this incredibly virile man. Dominic finds himself feeling lost and the only thing that makes him feel like a real person is when he is buried in a woman (his words) or when he is painting- and he has found that his most recent muse is the fiery haired prude from the carriage. After one night of heavy drinking he finds himself with recollections of a soft, sweet smelling woman in his bed, but he cannot remember who she is- until he discovers that his new valet is actually a woman; the same woman he cannot get out of his head. Dominic knows that he wants her but he is equally sure that his empty soul is unable to offer her marriage. Fallon does not last long against Dominic's charms but she still refuses to become his mistress and give into a blue blood. She leaves Dominic with a challenge: to let go of his past, forgive the mistakes that have been made, and open up his heart. Fallon also needs to let go of her hatred for the nobility in order to find the home she has always longed for- with the man who can do anything to win her.

The first half of the book is basically one scene after another of Dominic engaging in incredibly rakish behaviors, from sucking on another woman's nipple in front of Fallon to being caught in bed with a married woman. I knew that there would need to be some major repentance, combined with some major awfulness from his past to make up for his actions. It's one thing to read about how his past is filled with such incidences and another to actually read about said incidences in the present and it's something I had major trouble getting over. Weird how that works, but it's true. Dominic's complaint was that he was constantly empty and he needed something to fill this emptiness, whether that be a woman or getting a very painful tattoo. This emptiness sprung from a grandfather who put him in the care of an abusive and very angry governess. I guess that's as good a reason as any to turn out... not so polite, but I don't believe that the book adequately explains how he goes from dissolute rogue to the lovelorn, forgiving, desperate man he is at the end. I guess I'm supposed to chalk up to his love for Fallon.

Fallon had issues with her past as well, but they played out in a much more realistic and solvable way. Her hatred of the nobility springs from her father's death and it leads to stubbornness and pride, both of which she has managed to conquer by the end in a very believable manner. Like all working women in romance novels she suffers from being constantly harassed by all male relatives of her employers so nothing new there. Sex was a very big part of this book as both of them are constantly attracted to each other, however, while there are plenty of unconsummated scenes, there are not nearly enough full sex scenes and the ones there are don't play out as romantically as they should have. Sex with Fallon should have been different, more making love, then all the women he had slept with before. There was no side plot of anything to detract from making the protagonists the central, the only, focus of the story, and I felt like that really benefited the novel as their emotional turmoil and their pasts really did make this a complete book.

Rating: I find that I am unable to completely get over Dominic's behavior in regards to other women throughout the story, but the emotional breakthroughs these characters made were quite amazing.

One Night with You

One Night With You by Sophie Jordan

Jane Guthrie is a widow living with her husband's family who serves as protectors of the estate until her stepson becomes old enough to inherit. The family consists of two teenage girls she is supposed to basically serve as governess too and a lecherous man and a nasty lady and they all treat her as a servant. And she certainly doesn't have fond memories of her womanizing husband to keep her warm at night. Imagine her surprise to run into the former love of her life Seth Rutledge who had been her childhood friend. That all ended when he fell in love with her sister who promptly broke his heart in exchange for a better match. Jane manages to disguise her identity as Aurora and engages in a night of passion with him and promises herself it will be just one night of magic. Meanwhile Seth is wondering why he finds himself so attracted to two completely different women: the prim and proper Lady Guthrie and the smoldering Aurora.

The ruse is discovered when Jane goes to Seth to announce her pregnancy; a circumstance that unnecessarily infuriates him. Seth was in need of a wife anyway, preferably someone who respects and can get along with his blind sister, which Jane already does. Jane, Seth, his sister Julianne and his manservant Gregory all head up to his families house by the beach where tensions run high as Seth continues to ignore Jane while she, for reasons unknown given how he treats her, realizes she is in love with him. In a fun, and completely well done, side plot Julianne and Gregory discover their own feelings for each other. Jane is eventually forced to take drastic measures before Seth realizes his own feelings and the book is tidied up nicely in a 4- page epilogue.

Perhaps the best part about the book was that it had no side plot. No one was murdered, we never suspected anyone might be murdered, and no one was a spy! A miracle! Another plus in my opinion was the most unique "love" scene I have ever read in a romance novel and it might possibly serve as a spoiler. Before their marriage, Seth becomes angry with Jane and kisses her rather harshly, and she DOES NOT RESPOND! I have never read a romance where the female doesn't melt at even the slightest touch the hero bestows upon her. So a plus for something new and unexpected. And I'm a sucker for scenes where the heroine has to tell the reluctant hero that he's about to be a papa and this one did not disappoint. Roiling emotions, horrible accusations, shouting, and nearly as much angst as anyone could want. And the sex was hot. There were only a couple scenes, but what they lacked in number, they made up for in content.

The one thing about this book that irked me is very likely one only I could notice. I am a big fan of angst and this romance novel set itself up perfectly to provide an unprecedented amount of angst. He had been in love with her sister! There should have been more insecurity on her part about his feelings for her sister and lots of brooding on his part until he eventually came to realize that he ended up with the better sister. But I guess there's only so much angst that can be crammed into a book. I was also somewhat baffled by how horribly Seth treated Jane for most of their marriage until literally the last 5 pages.

The angst that did ensue, the very like-ability of the two characters, and the lack of boring subplot, except for the great extra romance, make this book a good, if not great read.