In Which The Lady Liberty Drops Out of Law School to Become a Joanna Bourne Expert.

Well, maybe not.  But probably.

The Lady Liberty graces us with her review of My Lord and Spymaster:

I was anxiously anticipating the arrival of my second and third Joanna Bournes (my second and third romance purchases) and as though Amazon was congratulating me for my new hobby, they threw in ten Janet Evanoviches as well. I can only imagine there is some poor human in America who is simply lost without Two for the Dough... and nine of the other books from the Stephanie Plum series. Sorry!         

On to the less-than-aptly named My Lord and Spymaster. Not that it’s too far wrong, but I believe Bourne failed a little with the whole idea that Jess Whitby believes that Captain Sebastian Kennett (who incidentally has her naked in his bed by page 25, though not in the way you think) is actually Cinq, a French spy who has supplied English secrets to Napoleon. Jessamyn Whitby is the lovely heiress and mastermind behind one of England’s most successful shipping companies. While expensive governesses have tried to turn her into a lady, she occasionally slips into her criminal cockney roots which is perfectly charming and believable. The crux of that matter is that her father has been arrested because the British Service believes he is Cinq, and against his orders, she sets about clearing his name by finding the real Cinq. Which is how she ends up in a dark alleyway with her hands in Bastian’s pockets.        

 We spend about an equal amount of time in Kennett’s point of view as we do in Jess Whitby’s which is why I’m not spoiling anything when I say it’s very hard for us to believe that the Captain is Cinq the way Jess does. And there is conflict enough between them even without it (he’s the owner of a rival shipping company, among other things...), but I would have liked it to be a little more ambiguous, or to drop the whole ruse altogether.        While this one was as juicy and delectable a read, it was weaker than her first. Adrian Hawkhurst and William Doyle have returned and are as wonderful as ever, and she reveals of a few good nuggets about the how the characters all fit in together, but I was left wanting just a little bit more. I even found the great reveal in the end a wee bit predictable. And Chapter 21 made me mad. Note that and tell me if you can guess why.        

 In all, I thoroughly enjoyed it, her facility with sexual tension is ever apparent and her characters lovely as ever and villains as detestable, I just don’t find this novel as tightly crafted as her first and as I’m finding her third to be. It’s almost as though there was some page-filling stalling happening that just wasn’t quite entertaining enough to not feel like stalling. That said, I’d stall with Sebastian Kennett any day, thank you please. Joanna Bourne, I love you, keep writing, please.

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?

In Which Lady Liberty Pays Us A Visit.

Lady Liberty is one of my favorite people. Paris chum, Grey's Anatomy grade "person," Law student genius, and all-around excellent drinking buddy.

I remember when we first met (still skeptical about whether or not we were really meant to be...) and she found out I read romance novels. I think I lost about 16 points in her estimation that day. But then I gave her one to read. And she liked it. Not enough to go out and buy Linda Howard's entire back catalog, but enough that when I recommended another one to her she was happy to read it.

Fast-forward five years (five years!! I weep for my lost youth!), and La Lalib is looking for more ways to procrastinate from her law-school duties. What's a good friend to do? Send over a stack of books, of course! And ask her to write a guest review instead of that important law-school analysis paper! (You can tell I know all about how law school works).

OK. Enough with the introducing already. Without further ado, Lady Liberty's guest-review of The Spymaster's Lady:

What’s so remarkable about Joanna Bourne’s The Spymaster’s Lady is, in short... everything. While my foray into the romance world is about (exactly) six novels deep, I know a good heroine/hero/bitchin’ plot/style/180 degree plot twist when I see one. And boy, was there a lot of all that. What hits you immediately about this book is how quickly you’re trapped in a world you don’t ever want to leave. With a lot of these (or... the five previous) novels, I find it takes about 20 pages to wrap your brain around a writer’s voice and get comfortable, another 20 pages to understand where you are and what you’re doing there, maybe another 20 to like the main character and maybe even another 20 before you’re madly in love with leading man. And. That’s. O. K. Some people like to ease into a book and then let it pick up speed like a bike with no brakes on a downhill.

Not Joanna Bourne. By page 20, her leading lady is, in the words of Kate Jones, a bad-ass, (a French spy bad-ass who incapacitates large men while seducing enemy spies, no less) we’ve met a worthy hero who is not by any means convenient (but already tortured by the heroine), and we’re chest-deep in plot so juicy the pages turn themselves. Sigh. Okay. Deep breath.

What turns out to be so wonderful and unique about this novel is its relative subtlety. In other novels, even ones I’ve loved, I’ve been ready to throw down the book for the sheer obviousness of it. In most cases, we know the author is going to give us what we want--that being sex and a happy ending (unrelated to the sex part)--but the torturous twists and turns sometimes seem contrived and, well... torturous. Not so here. Every turn builds easily on what came before and is at the same time, unpredictable and with purpose. Yummy.

Annique Villiers is a bad-ass, point final, you can even excuse her blunt and straightforward ramblings about how she shouldn’t love the men she loves. It doesn’t deflate the tension like you’d expect it to, quite the opposite. Cool writer trick employed is interplay between the “good guys”. Grey, our dashing hero, and his team of spies, though enemies of Annique, care about her, respect her, and protect her, and so we care. Then when intrigue between Annique and Grey begins, it’s speculated on by the other “boys” adding a gossip factor that makes the tension irresistible, and even more so because it’s not the author telling us it should be irresistible. Bourne managed to do this with all of her principle good guys, the mutual respect and admiration turns them instantly into friends that I keep looking for even after reading the final page. Ahhh. Okay.

How terribly triste that my first guest posting is such an effusion of blather, but when you start out with a gem, it can only go down from here. Wait...