Review: Scandal of the Year

Scandal of the Year by Laura Lee Guhrke

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Aidan Carr, the Duke (10 points!) of Trathen is a solid, upright, honorable citizen. Which is why it seems out of character for him to be named correspondent in a scandalous divorce case. Yet he cannot get the memories of his tryst with the notorious Julia, Lady Yardley, out of his mind. Except for the parts he can't remember at all. All of which combine to totally drive him crazy, even as he tries to move on with his life.

Julia, Lady Yardley, is relieved to finally be free of her brutal husband, even though she had to seduce and betray a friend to finally get her husband to divorce her. Yet her financial problems remain, and the only person who can help her appears to be the Duke of Trathen...

This book is a fascinating look into the relationship between two people who seem to be opposite: Aidan dearly wants to be married and have a family, while Julia has very good reason to be wary of entering any institution where someone can control her again. Aidan seeks respectability, while Julia has always been freewheeling. Yet Aidan has his reckless side (he loses control when he drinks, which is why he doesn't usually drink), and Julia is nowhere near as promiscuous as she presents herself.

I really enjoyed this book. Like the first in the series, I thought the ending was a little rushed and a little pat, but overall it is a solid, enjoyable romance, and one that really makes a modern reader appreciate the humane-ness of modern divorce law!


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I Like a Good Scoundrel, But...

Title: Seize the Fire
Author: Laura Kinsale
Genre: Regency (sort of).
Grade: C (for c-sick after reading about so many ships)
How Hot is it?: three hot chili peppers

...A good scoundrel should get what he deserves.

This book is...panoramic. The heroine is a princess of some little Alpine country and has been educated in England to be a revolutionary idealist. The "hero" (I use this word loosely) is basically a sea-captain version of Flashman, that is, if Flashman were conscience-driven enough to--barely--NOT throw the girl out of the troika to the wolves as he saves his own ass, but to even fixate (sometimes) on protecting her (as long as it doesn't threaten him, of course). Throughout this book, which is set variously in England, Portugal, the Falkland Islands, and the Ottoman Empire (!), the heroine is stupid and idealistic, and the hero periodically betrays her and then comes crawling back with his tail between his legs. Pathetic. By the end they have figured out to be a LITTLE smarter and a LITTLE more reliable, but I wouldn't bet on it lasting. Again, the conflict in this romance seems to be built on a self-reinforcing cycle of negative behavior that isn't convincingly resolved into something that promises a generally happy ending.

Kinsale is considered one of the greats of historical romance and she's written some well-above-average stuff (Flowers from the Storm and Midsummer Moon are two of my favorite romances, after all) and I can't fault her here as a prose stylist. But it's pretty hard for a romance to overcome characters this flawed (in the case of the hero) and annoying (in the case of the heroine). The sympathy is lacking. On the other hand, it's a difficult book to put down because Kinsale write so well you almost miss the dysfunctional dynamics.

Welcome to Dukes of Earl

I'm starting this blog because I like to read romances. I read a lot of romances. I read a lot of other kinds of books as well, but it's really easy to read too many romances because it's a genre where a good (or even middling) book will go fast, riding you to the climax as it were.

Last year I started keeping track of the books I read. This year I started reviewing them. And this blog is to share these reviews with the world at large, or, at least, the portion of it on the Internet that finds out about this blog.

There is a particular kind of romance I like to read. Just like some romance readers enjoy reading about Greek tycoons or vampires or Navy SEALs, I like reading romances set in 18th and early 19th century England. This encompasses the Regency and Georgian sub-genres. And in these books, there are a lot of dukes. And earls. Viscounts, barons, baronets, and marquesses, as well. There are, I say (fabricating wildy), more titled men and women in Romanceland than there ever were in real life! I don't, actually, have a particular fetish for dukes--I'm happy to read about a baronet or even just a plain mister! But Dukes of Earl seemed like a good title for a blog about this genre.

Along the way I will be exploring romance tropes (how did I get to read 2 books in a row about redheaded amnesiacs kept by the men who found them for fondling purposes? or 2 books in a row about the long-lost heir to a dukedom?), book titles that have nothing to do with the content of the book, back-of-the-book blurbs that get it wrong, the good and bad points of each book consumed and the tragic demise of Signet Regencies, as well as other topics as they occur to me.

I'll be trickling out some reviews from earlier this year and then catching up with more recent reads. Because I get many of my romances from the library (I buy a fair amount too, but the library provides me with a trial run for many authors), a recent read may not be a recent release.

I hope you enjoy this blog and I welcome you to comment about the book (if you've read it) or anything else in the post.