In Which Lady Liberty Goes Out on a Limb.

By popular demand, this week I am proud (and thrilled because it's less work for me!) to welcome La Laliberte back to the floor. And since I'm not Obsessed with anything today except Christmas card writing, baking, and people-I-just-remembered-I-need-to-get-presents-for, this post shall alternately be called In Which Thoroughly Obsessed Thursday Likes to Delegate.

Madame, if you please:

Having hungrily eaten up any romance novel Kate Jones has been kind enough to throw my way, I thought maybe, just maybe, I was ready to select my own. And staring down the Paperback Section of the Local Library (a daunting task for a green young romance reader like myself) I finally settled on Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase. The name popped out because she was recommended on Amazon when I was trying to find out how to buy every. single. thing. Joanna Bourne has ever written. (see A Spymaster's Lady, which I may never return, by the way... okay I will, but only because I know there's a special corner of hell reserved for people who don't return borrowed books) Another historical by Loretta Chase is also one of the few historical romances graded higher than said fantastic novel by Bourne, so I checked out this book with high hopes.

The first twenty pages did NOT inspire much confidence. Here's a writer who knows how to play with tension and the fast-paced, later parts of a book, but spits out exposition like it's bitter medicine. Firstly, she starts Chapter One: "The trouble with Darius Carsington was, he had no heart." That sentence had so much promise (HELLO! That name!) and then you conclude it with a bald-faced lie. I know damn well you're going to make him the lovingest, most caring creature on the earth by page 60... And then, the whole first chapter was spent delving into the complex he'd developed as a result of intimidating talks with his father who doesn't see the merits of his accomplished science career and how hard it is to be the youngest of five highly accomplished older brothers. If he was really the churlish rake that she wants us to believe he is, than he wouldn't care about all that, or at least, we wouldn't know he did until they start falling in love and she realizes he's only a rake because he has these deep-seated emotional problems that need to be resolved. (That ladies and gentlemen, is a mild Lady Liberty rant.)

Even while Lady Charlotte appears to be a smart and admirable heroine adept at rejecting husbands without anyone noticing, much of the plot is advanced by her falling on her face. Not just once and not awe-inspiring, to be sure. Some fun themes, a painstakingly obvious plot twist (another tension-builder-that-wasn't) and a mostly emotionally satisfying relationship make it fun enough to read once you get past the awkward beginning, but I don't know what this says for Last Night's Scandal aka My First Romance Purchase Ever. Let's keep our fingers crossed, shall we?