Four in Hand; Stephanie Laurens

I didn't realize this is the second Stephanie Laurens book I've reread for the Challenge until I'd already finished it. :( Even so, it's late & I've no time or interest in rereading something else so I've put a post it note on my calender reminding me not to pick Ms. Laurens next time! LOL The title links to Ms. Laurens page that has the original back cover blurbs. This link connects you to the page listing all of Ms. Laurens' regencies. This is truly a book out of the Wayback Machine. Four in Hand was originally published by Mills & Boon back in 1993! My copy is the 2002 version, which is the cover I've posted here, many thanks to the folks over at Fantastic Fiction. FIH is your basic traditional regency guardian ward theme romance.

Max Rotherbridge, the new Duke of Trowbridge, is rousted out of bed by his staff at the ungodly hour of nine am (!!) because a young lady awaits him in the downstairs parlor. Yes, Your Grace, an actual young lady. Miss Caroline Twinning (just like the tea), age twenty five (and unmarried, can you imagine?!) has arrived at Max's house to discuss his guardianship of herself and her three sisters. To say that Caroline was shocked & upset upon seeing Max's evident youth & savvy is to overstate matters considerably. To her immense credit, however, Caroline sees immediately that the Twinning sisters' hopes of hijinks in London under the doddering eyes of an elderly, easily befuddled male guardian are not to pass.

Poor hung over Max, after ordering an ice pack, shoos her off to her hotel & goes to see his solicitor. Which gentleman tells him that a)he can't get out of it and b) that each young woman is an heiress in her own right. Yes, all four of them are as rich as Croseus, to borrow as PG Wodehouse phrase. Max then hares off to his Aunt Augusta's house & pleads his case. Could she, would she, pretty please be the Twinning's chaperone & help him see them all safely married and off his hands as soon as possible? Of course she would. She could never let down her favorite nephew.

Like all traditional regencies, the door closes on the serious loving. All of the characters are straight out of casting. Incredible gorgeous, intelligent & wealthy young women. A crotchety elderly aunt, socially well connected and quite a shrewd judge of character to serve as chaperone. The group of male friends, all sexually experienced, wealthy rakes who really don't want to get married. Mix in one London season, lots of parties and a group of sisters who plot together?

After rereading this, I still find it a quick, light and happy read with all of the familiar casting with whom a knowledgeable reader is familiar. One of the differences is that all of the men are quite upfront with each other that they really don't want to get "leg shackled" as they so eloquently phrase it. But they do want as much slap & tickle as they can get away with. One of the guys actually proposes to one sister that she become his mistress! Max and Augusta already keep a sharp eye on the girls, so things will probably only go so far.. but still a rake can always hope, right?

As I dearly love the restrictions of the traditional regency genre & mourn is near demise Four in Hand will stay on my keeper shelves. :)

Happy Reading!

Reread Challenge: Daughter of the Blood; Anne Bishop

For this month's Reread Challenge over at Nath's blog (link also on sidebar), I reread Anne Bishop's first book in the Black Jewels Trilogy. The copy I have is one of the original mass market versions published by Roc in 1998, this is the cover on the left. The cover on the right is the new one. There are now several versions (mm, qp, ebook, etc.) available, many listed on the author's website listed in the link embedded in the title above. DotB is dark fantasy. To see a list of this month's Reread Challenge participants click here. To read my original comments on this series, click here.

Ms. Bishop created a formidably complex world in this book, one that completely fascinated me. Parts of Daughter of the Blood were dark enough, torturous enough that I don't read them. I stopped reading certain characters' vignettes halfway through the first time I picked this book up. That hasn't changed. I reread this series every year and every year I just can't do it.

In this world, the Blood are a people gifted with magic. Individuals have gifts of varying degrees which are symbolized by colored jewels given during certain childhood rituals. The Blood are spread among several small connected countries and often live among nonmagical humans, called landens. Generally, the Blood believe that women are the symbolic vessel of power, thus Blood societies are of a matriarchal feudal type. Men serve in various capacities, some of which are usually thought of as typically female: contraception within committed relationships, protecting the woman from overextending herself (sometimes via magic) and similar.

Ok. So there are two young men, named Lucivar and Daemon, who are hugely gifted with power, who have been enslaved by morally corrupt ruling queens who are murdering their female rivals. They keep powerful males weak and submissive via pain and torture and outright murder since ordinarily a powerful male would kill off a ruling queen who is corrupt. These women are in a quest to dominate all of the countries around them. These two young men are friends of a sort, a bond forged in pain and suffering. A seven year old little girl visits each of them, under bizarre circumstances, in secret.

The little girl intrigues everyone she meets. It's rapidly apparent that she was gifted with more power than anyone ever. This, unfortunately, sets her apart- makes her an outlier to use Malcolm Gladwell's phrase. Jaenelle Angelline, even at her young age, has secrets- dark secrets that make the ones who love her most fearful for her very survival. Will Jaenelle survive to fulfill her destiny, whatever that might be?

Daughter of the Blood is the story of Jaenelle, Daemon, Lucivar and Saetan. It is an age old story in some ways: depravity, immorality to the point of being a sociopath, greed for power and influence. Corruption. Suffering. Finding one's purpose in life. Compassion. The story hops between various viewpoints, always furthering the plot one step at a time. However, it continues into book two, Heir to the Shadows. There is no resolution at the end of this book. I absolutely love this series & recommend it often. Ms. Bishop's newest release, The Shadow Queen, came out in March and is set in this world and is linked to The Invisible Ring.

Images found on Tower and Mobipocket.

Stranger in my Arms; Lisa Kleypas

I reread this for the Reread Challenge, link also on sidebar. I’ve had this book on my keeper shelves for so long I completely forgot what it was about. How it survived last year’s keepers purge I don’t know, but I’m really glad it did. You see, I live in a very small duplex with two teenagers, my husband and our dog, not to mention the college student who’s here over breaks. It’s a bit crowded. In an effort to do my part and reduce the clutter (gulp) I decided to weed out my keepers to provide a little shelving room. I told myself that I should only keep the ones where I can remember the plot or why I loved the book, even in a very general sense: it made me laugh, it made me cry, an unusual hero or heroine, etc. I turned a whole bunch of books in to my local library for their monthly ‘friends’ sale. It was painful, but necessary. I don’t even recall who I traded, to be honest.

Somehow, Stranger in my Arms made it through the purge. This title was written by Lisa Kleypas and published in 1998. Childless twenty four year old widow Larissa, dowager Countess of Hawksworth, is abruptly informed that her supposedly deceased husband, Hunter, has shown up in England hale and quite alive. The male relative who had taken his place is understandably suspicious. Hunter and Larissa were unhappily married and were living separate lives when Hunter sailed for India. It was thought he’d died in a shipwreck.

Before I go on, can I just say that I find the probability of a man in the English aristocracy being christened Hunter so improbable as to be ridiculous? And that his wife would refer to him by his first name (as opposed to his title or Hawksworth) in public? The other annoying issue is that her name is Larissa, but everyone calls her Lara- even in situations where she should be called by her title or at least my lady or something similar. Why name your heroine one name and then call her by another? For some readers these issues would be minor, but for me they were annoying. My biggest problem with SIMA is that Larissa was shunted off into a moldy rundown game keepers cottage on the estate with very little money and no servants or chaperones or a companion- yet she was the dowager Countess. Am I to believe her family was so unconcerned with her future security that this would have been allowed in her settlements or otherwise?

I continued to read though, because the crux of the whole book came down to this: does one seize a second chance at love or does one shun the proffered crown because of ideology? Hunter is not who he claims to be. Larissa, while doubtful, comes to appreciate this man for how he treats her even while her own doubts assail her. When she finally learns the truth, Larissa must decide: carpe diem or stand alone on the plinth of ideology? It is no small thing, this deception of ‘Hunter’s’. To take on the identity of another and fully take over his life. Yet, I rooted for him, for her, for them.

Larissa for her part tends toward the Mary Sue: naïve, willfully innocent of many things a Countess should not be, unworldly, compliant and submissive to the point of impoverishing herself, yet ending up on her feet despite a situation that would’ve daunted most women. As the book goes on Larissa shows some backbone and stands up for what she believes in, demands that Hunter respect her person and her needs. She learns to push back against Hunter more than she was able to before he reappeared. Larissa deliberately sets Hunter up in an embarrassing public confrontation, partly out of pique but also to show him that he cannot simply trifle with her.

Ms. Kleypas made all of these conventions come alive for me, even while I had some serious issues with the details. I’m glad I kept it.


Image found on Fantastic Fiction