madeline's Reviews (776)

somewhere in tessa dare's WHEN A SCOT TIES THE KNOT, the hero is discussing how best to woo his wife with the men he led in war. there's a lot of suggestions being made, some more reasonable than others (were i the maddie of this book, the hamming up of the scottish accent that one of them suggests certainly would have worked on me), but one man suggests this:

“She wants your secrets. She wants your soul. You've got to crack yourself open and find that broken, shameful piece of your heart that you'd hide from the world and God Himself if you could manage it. And then serve it up to her on a platter.”

i think that, at the end of the day, what many of these old school historicals are missing for me is this element: the scene where the hero bares his soul to the heroine. it's the ultimate humbling, to offer up the worst of yourself to the person you'd least like to see it, and hope that they're still standing there when you look back up at them. because a lot of these books seem to have impenetrable heroes who remain relatively impenetrable, the emotional connection between them (and thus with the reader) just isn't there for me.

and when it comes down to it, this book was fine. but honestly, if it wasn't a fated mates episode i definitely wouldn't have read the whole thing. my copy is 405 pages and it feels like 405 pages. it was not a quick read for me. is there a lot of weird power dynamics going on that we'd side-eye in a book now? yeah, definitely. does it hold up pretty well for a book published 30 years ago? i'd say so.

for me, the standout characters were thomas and jeremy, georgie's brother and james's son, respectively. if this was being written today, i'd absolutely be pushing for them to end up together because they are respectful and calm kings!!! alas this is a completed series, and it doesn't look like thomas ever got a book :(

i wouldn't be surprised if i ended up returning to this series one day, but i'm not really in a rush

christ on a bike, what a book. woof.

DUKE OF SIN is about as bodice rippery as you can get without literal bodices being ripped, and shocked me when i learned it was published in the last five years.  it's morality chain with no discernible chemistry between the hero and the heroine and subplots sure to turn your stomach.

val, the duke of montgomery is unapologetically a villain, ready and willing to blackmail anyone for what he wants.  in a rare show of humanity, he refuses to rape anyone, particularly children, but is still willing to join a gang of pedophile nobles to gain more power and make jokes about engaging in sexual acts with his teen valet.  bridget crumb is his housekeeper and enticing because she's the rare woman who doesn't put up with his bullshit. 

when we meet valentine, he's just come out of spending several months in the walls of his home.  since i jumped into this series in the middle, i can only imagine (or hope, i suppose) that this little jaunt is explained in another book since the feasibility of this is certainly never addressed.  the book only devolves from there, rife with murders and kidnappings and a woman inexplicably falling in love with what has to be a sociopath.  the standout character in this entire book is

bridget's brother

lord clare, who upon learning that val

debauched this sister he learned he has literally thirty seconds earlier

punches him in the face.

and look, certainly this book wasn't my cup of tea.  but the one star rating comes from the detailed instances of animal abuse, the very blasé attitude towards a group of nobles raping and murdering children, a <i>lot</i> of weird orientalism - just a lot of stuff that i'm slightly more willing to tolerate in a forty year old book but that an editor in 2016 should have side eyed way harder.  

if you love a very dark bodice ripper or dark romance, you'll love this.  if you're a mafia romance reader looking to try a historical, i think this would really work for you - there's no organized crime subplot but there is a ruthless hero who does a lot of *grabby hands* mine at the heroine.  in particular, i think if you liked [book:Run Posy Run|57488034] you'd like this, and vice versa.

me? not so much.

CWs:

pedophilia, murder, kidnappings, descriptions of near-rapes, a lot of animal trauma (the dog & the cats that show up in the main timeline are fine), racism, Orientalism, blackmail... honestly probably more, idk.

now i understand jenreadsromance's deep personal vendetta against fossils.

often when i read a marriage after ruining/"ruining" or marriage of convenience story, i spend a lot of the book being like "just be in LOVE you dummies, stop fighting it!"  the two amanda quicks i've now read have proven to me that i do not actually want them to just be in love, i would like a little angst, because they both have couples who got married and promptly were like "well, best to make a good-faith go at it and now three days later we have calmly agreed we're in love." i'm exaggerating on the timeline a bit, but still.

anyways, i once again didn't really feel the chemistry (or passion, maybe? is that what i'm missing?) and good lord there was a lot of fossil talk. this book seems to be a favorite of many, though, and i would love to have my mind changed.

also, as a warning and not to hold a book written nearly 30 years ago to 2021 standards, the apparent suicide of gideon's first fiancée is treated rather glibly throughout.

CW:

death of a sibling, death by suicide of a former love interest, attempted rape, a non-narrative character describes killing said sibling and love interest, murder of an adult child by a parent, attempted murder

i've not read a ton of mmf, but certainly not one where there's not an established couple taking a third into their relationship. it seems risky to me, since starting a throuple from scratch means you have to do a LOT of trust building between your characters, and i'm not sure that katie nailed it here. a slow start led to a plot that moved at 100 mph, somehow managing to fit in thoughts on PTSD/being a veteran, a multi-day kidnapping moment, a parental come to jesus segment, and an eleventh hour realization that one character is a decade older than the other two and they are "theirs" to take care of. also, this book is mainly them having very satisfying if not sometimes anatomically eyebrow raising sex. i do not know how katie had time for all of their sex and also plot. so, kudos to her there, i suppose.

this was the first lisa kleypas book that really worked for me - i came to romance in 2019, so my first LK was Devil's Daughter, which did not do it for me, and i had yet to experience the glory of Dreaming of You, let alone Devil in Winter or Marrying Winterbourne. a reread is certainly satisfying, and this is a solid showing from Kleypas, but it's honestly just really difficult to compete with St. Vincent Senior or Winterborne, and some of my other favorites from other series.

tom severin is redeemed much as sebastian is in DIW - the personality traits that grate against the reader in earlier novels and make him almost an anti-hero are the things we love about him in his own book. he's now apologetically in pursuit of success, able to realize that sometimes his tactics make him no friends and focused more on relationships than winning. to me, this is one of the funnier kleypas books, too; tom's outlook is simultaneously naive and jaded, and it's delightful to watch him come to a more human understanding through popular literature.

overall, i think this book is a good entry point into the series as devil in winter is for the wallflowers: someone who has been more or less antagonistic finally comes with his heart in his hand for his match, and everything that would irritate us in other books is giggle-inducing. i can't say that this is the strongest installment in the series, but it's definitely a good one.

listen, i'll tell you one thing, and that's for sure - amanda quick is NOT trying to be subtle here. an incredibly Proper Aristrocrat hero whose courtesy title is CHILLhurst?? and he's the opposite of his wild family, the title that he will inherit being FLAMEcrest?? jared enters olympia's family masquerading as a tutor to her three unruly nephews, determined to impose order and schedules (he does love a schedule), and despite all his protestations, olympia identifies the simmering passion beneath his starched cravat immediately. and, of course, in order to prove his commitment to her and her nephews, he must give up what best symbolizes his aspirations towards peace and calm: a watch.

this was fun, and aged remarkably well for a book that's older than i am. to me, it was humorous without being truly funny - i love the idea of dispassionate jared exasperatedly putting out fires and serenely escaping the attic in which his wife has locked him. i do think the pacing was allllll over the place, and their chemistry a bit lackluster, but this was a nice introduction to quick (and jayne ann krentz as a whole, maybe? i don't know that i've read anything by her).

 did i understand the magic system? no. was it flawlessly edited? no. was it the best thing that adriana has ever written? no.

was it super fucking hot? yeah. 

In Olympus, only The Thirteen have power, and those who desire it will stop at nothing to get it.  The old Ares is dead, and the competition to find his replacement begins in days.  Achilles and his partner Patroclus are determined to earn Achilles the crown, and the deal is sweetened when Zeus offers his beautiful sister Helen as wife to the winner.  But what no one knows is that Helen plans to enter the competition and become Ares herself - if she can keep her wits about her and her heart to herself.  Achilles and Patroclus, though, are turning out to be tougher obstacles for both those challenges than she expected.

I loved this book, even though it was a 3.5 star read.  I loved it a lot.  Achilles is a golden retriever with a steel spine, Patroclus is the World's Most Muscular Nerd, and Helen is determined to gain power based on her abilities and not her appearance or family ties.  I will say, though, that it's more about them than what's going on in Olympus.  I would have liked more politics, and I rarely say that. 

I also understand why it had to end the way it did - it was pretty obvious throughout that it was going to end that way, and that based on the character arcs it needed to.  But some of the characters raise what I think are very valid concerns about how things shake out, and I agree with them.  It wasn't the ending I would have given it, but it's certainly very satisfying.  

Anyway, even though I loved watching the three of them come together, I'm really truly desperate for more politicking here.  This book just needed to do more for me.  Also - I trust Katee and her overall story arc, but literally how are Perseus and Callisto not even next, but also not a revealed book at all?? I need them so much.

Thank you Sourcebooks and Edelweiss for the ARC!

Gabriel Beckett, Earl of Bladenton, is desperately hoping that Miss Lively's school is the one that can tame his wild niece.  She's his last hope, and he's her's - Hazel Lively needs to increase her fledgling school's enrollment and the earl's name and money are a foolproof way to do that.  That is, if she can convince his niece to stop playing pranks and focus on her talents and repair the relationship between uncle and niece at the same time.  With twice-monthly family visits, it's not long before Blade and Hazel can't deny there's a relationship between the two of them as well, but can they trust each other with their hearts and goals?

I found this to be a perfectly fine historical romance, if a bit formulaic - I think the elements here (incorrigible ward, bluestocking teachers trying to give their students a taste of their potential, a Proper Aristocrat looking for a very boring wife, everyone with a Very Tragic Background™️) have all been done before and in more interesting ways.  Some character names drove me absolutely up a wall, too: we've a hero literally called Blade, which is far too interesting a nickname for him, and the local society matron is Lady Rufflebum.  A little too much for my taste.  Still, there's nothing bad about this book, and depending on who the next woman is to get the Rogue to Lover treatment, I may pick it up.

Thank you St. Martin's and NetGalley for the ARC!

An exhaustively researched biography of Vivian Maier provides much more information on the famously private street photographer.  Although it's a bit long at points (there's almost as much information on her ancestors as there is on her), it flows well and is nicely broken up by photographs.  Marks' analysis of Vivian's behavior as a nanny likely could have used a little more nuance.  I generally find attempts by professionals to diagnose a person they've never met, particularly a deceased person with very little personal information left behind, fairly problematic and while I don't disagree that there was certainly evidence of mental illness here I could have done without their diagnoses in this book.  Marks takes special care to emphasize Vivian's forward-thinking political and social beliefs, and I would have appreciated more time being spent on them, especially since they're restated without additional analysis or information in the appendix.

As ever, Vivian's collection raises questions about ownership, copyright, and privacy, which I think can be extended out to amateur and/or outsider art writ large.  The author concludes that Vivian would be proud to have her work displayed after her death, and while I agree, I don't think she'd want it being displayed as it is now.  There's a bit in the appendix where Marks writes about how developing, editing, and cropping photographs is basically as intrinsic to the art form as setting up the shot is, and I agree - particularly given all the evidence that Marks presents about Vivian being thoughtful about cropping.  Still, there's no doubt that Vivian was a groundbreaking photographer, and I'm grateful her work was discovered.

Thank you Atria and NetGalley for the ARC!