Don't Tempt Me

I did just what I thought I would - I downloaded Don't Tempt Me by Loretta Chase Monday night and I have read it twice already. I loved it, but not unqualifiedly. There are appealing and entertaining main characters, witty dialogue (excessive dusting!), and good sex. I think what's holding me back from loving it unreservedly is the lack of tension or conflict. It goes from some minor hitches to big love affair mighty smoothly and so the book (which I read in ebook format so I don't have a good notion of how long it would be in a printed book) seemed sort of lightweight. I've thought this about her last 3 books actually, so I shouldn't be surprised. Her earlier works, Lord Perfect and Miss Wonderful for example, are very detailed and meaty and there is so much to relish. I keep hoping the next one will be like the older ones, but no.

And now, just to be contradictory, the opposite problem - too much tension, too much conflict. I've just reread the Joanna Bourne books, The Spymaster's Lady and My Lord and Spymaster. I enjoyed them when they came out and they've improved on second reading, but somewhere about two-thirds of the way through I start thinking shouldn't they be starting to trust (get along, believe, etc. etc.) each other at this point? It seems that the major conflict between the two main characters isn't resolved until the last 2 or 3 pages even though they might be enjoying wild monkey sex already. I do love that her heroines are accomplished in some way in their own right - almost unbelievably so - and that in some circumstances, the heros acknowledge that. Just not enough, in my opinion. I keep thinking wouldn't it be nice if just this once instead of acting at odds with each other yet again, they could pull something off together, something they've planned? Yeah, that would be nice.

HMMM - Good or Bad

Well, I was hoping my next romance novel would be really good - the kind I give a big heart-felt sigh at the end of. When I started An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan, I thought I had it. Funny, funny laugh-out loud lines, great descriptions, poetic beaus, and two of my favorite Austen characters - a kind of eviler Mrs. Bennett and a dead-on Catherine DeBurgh. The novel opens with our accomplished woman, Lydia, in London visiting with her brother for no reason except to show us how good her single, accomplished independent life is. A good friend asks her to chaperon a young woman, Phoebe, who's just come out, is very wealthy, and can't make up her mind between two beaus. Lydia, being accomplished and all, doesn't want to but actually ends up liking the girl, so agrees to accompany her to Bath. One of Lydia's accomplishments is that she turned down a marriage proposal ten years earlier for reasons that were never clear to me. Did he not say he loved her? Was she too accomplished? I kept thinking there would be a better explanation - she caught him in bed with a maid, he has dark yearnings for bondage - something anyway. But I get ahead of myself - I didn't mind not really knowing this early in the book and there is so still so much to love.

The story moves on to Bath which now also includes Lydia's beau from ten years ago, Lewis Durrant, who has decided to marry someone to thwart his grasping heir, Hugh Hanley. Many hijinks ensue - balls, routs, picnics, etc. and all the while Lydia is saying she's being objective about Phoebe's beaus while really pushing one over the other because in her heart she knows what's right for Phoebe. And this is where it really fell apart for me. Lydia becomes downright unlikeable for the last third of the book. Her arrogance and blindsightedness are rampant - she's mean and rude to Lewis and she 's horrible to both of Phoebe's men. Her response to George Allerdyce's proposal was just baffling. I couldn't figure out his great sin - other than Lydia was too big of a dunderhead to notice what several other people had already pointed out to her. Anyway, after a lot of faffing around, Lydia finally gets her comeuppance and makes up with Lewis on the last 2 pages of the book. Yep, that's right, the last 2 pages. And I still wasn't clear on why she hadn't married him in the first place and why he'd carry a torch for 10 years. I wanted better for Lewis, I really did.

This novel had so much going for it that I was even more disappointed when I realized the lead character didn't have me on her side. Oh well, I guess I'm still looking for that next good read.

Disappointments

I finally broke down and bought the reprint of Susan Elizabeth Phillips' Glitter Baby - I say broke down, because I really don't like her "Hollywood" novels. I love, love, love her romances in which the hero is a football player, golfer, or sports agent, but not so much Honey Moon, Glitter Baby, and What I Did for Love. Glitter Baby is the story of Fleur Savagar (short for Savagarin - really? They dropped all of two letters. Couldn't they have gone with Savage) and Jake Koranda. Fleur's story is roughly based on Brooke Shields and maybe a little Candice Bergen thrown in there. It begins appropriately enough with with her mother - she slept with Errol Flynn and voila, Fleur. It goes through all the requisite steps - abandoned in a convent, pushy stage mom, beautiful but doesn't know it, falls in love with vet with PTSD, evil dad tries to sleep with her - and may I say ick about that last one. There's all kinds of Danielle Steelesque glamor - great clothes, exotic locations, pretty people, etc. My problem with the book is I don't like any of the main or for that matter, secondary characters. They all come across as either stupid or evil or self-involved. No one is witty either - that's usually a hallmark of SEP's work - lots of funny banter which is definitely wanting here. That was exactly the problem with What I Did for Love - SEP's latest which came out last summer or fall. I was so excited when I found out she was publishing a new book, then very leery when I realized it was about television/movie stars. I didn't like either of the protaganists in WIDFL either. There was some catchy banter, but it was all very mean-spirited. This one had Brangelina/Jennifer Anniston plot points which really grated for some reason. I'm not sure where SEP is headed next but I hope and pray it's somewhere sports related. I mean she hasn't done hockey or baseball or basketball yet!

My second disappointment was the latest Julia London book, Extreme Bachelor. Once I started reading I realized it was next in a series about a bunch of ex-CIA/ stuntmen who start a company that specializes in extreme sport vacations. Then I realized I had read the first one and didn't like it. Unfortunately, I didn't like this one any better - particularly the hero who's name I have erased from the memory banks. He's basically a jerk who realizes he dumped his one "twu luv" and wants to get back with her, but continues to flirt and date and carry on until he inadvertently ends up on a movie with her. I didn't even finish it - I got so tired of all the contrived plotting and icky people. With two misses in a row, I hope I get a good one next time out.

My Favorite Loretta Chase Romance

I adore Loretta Chase's books and am waiting for Don't Tempt Me (out June 30) with bated breath. I will probably buy in eBook format Monday night so I don't have to wait until Tuesday to get my hands on a copy - that's how much I'm looking forward to it. Having said that, I have yet to read anything else by her that has supplanted Lord Perfect in my heart. I have read that book so many times, my poor little copy is all blotched and torn and almost in pieces.

If I had to pick the very one thing that made Lord Perfect so attractive to me, I'd choose the wit. Some of the exchanges between Bathsheba and Benedict still put a big dopey grin on my face - particularly when they try to assure each other that they find the other merely tolerable. All of Bathsheba's comments about her daughter, Olivia, are wonderfully wry. Sarcasm can be expected from all the major characters, in fact, which I find very appealing.

The book also doesn't suffer from a plot that includes runaway children, a road trip, wet bathing sex, and buried treasure. My only quibble is that my copy has the worst model on the cover - I usually just avert my eyes so I don't ruin my fun.

For the rest, my top 7 in the order that I love them:

Lord Perfect
Lord of Scoundrels
Miss Wonderful
The Last Hellion
Mr. Impossible
Your Scandalous Ways/Not Quite a Lady tie

Why This Blog

I began reading romance novels in college when my roommate loaned me a Georgette Heyer book. Through the mists of time, I can no longer remember which one but it's nice to know I started with the best. We devoured Kathleen Woodiwiss (SEX) and Harlequins when we should have been studying for Western Civ exams. Those were the days - stretched out on our respective lumpy dorm mattresses, tossing comments about our current books back and forth knowing we had a book to swap when we finished. Bliss.

But then the bloom fell off the rose - after working through the good stuff, there really was very little high quality romance out there. I started reading other genres and never really dipped in the romance pool that much. Then, about three years ago, I picked up a Connie Brockway contemporary and got interested all over again. I've spent a great deal of time catching up and trying to find the Georgette Heyers and Kathleen Woodiwisses of today and learning who to avoid (there's unfortunately a lot of them).

I've had the urge now and again to keep a journal or some kind of record about my reading so that I can 1) keep track of what I've read so that I don't read or (horrors) buy it again; 2) get a warm glow from reminiscing about the good stuff'; and, 3) rant about some of the really atrocious romance conventions, cliches, etc.

I named my blog Flutter because that's what hearts do when they behold their loved one - not to mention all the eyelash fluttering going on. It just seemed appropriate