Not Quite a Lady by Loretta Chase

Book Description:
Darius Carsington is a spectacularly handsome rake with a rare intelligence and no heart, a man who divides his time between bedding loose-moraled women and writing scholarly papers. He finds society's “perfect darlings”....exceedingly boring. But there’s something intriguing, and not quite perfect, about faultless Lady Charlotte Hayward. He senses a crack under her polished surface, and finding it is a temptation he can’t resist.

Lady Charlotte is so beautiful, charming, and gracious that no one has noticed what an expert she is at Not Getting Married. Early on, she learned a painful lesson about trust....and temptation. In the years since, she’s devoted her life to all she ought to be-and she’s not about to let a man like Carsington entice her to do everything she shouldn’t.

But the laws of attraction can easily overpower the rules of manners and morals, and sometimes even the best-behaved girl has to follow her instincts, even if it means risking it all.

I really liked this book, despite the sad and poignant nature of the plotline. Loretta Chase is one of my favorite romance authors and this was a rough story line to handle, yet she does it well with just the right amount of sensitivity without it becoming too maudlin.  Not Quite a Lady addresses a serious issue, the strict standards put on women during this period when virginity was considered their single most important asset.  Lady Charlotte Hayward is a fallen woman - though no one knows it.  Ruined ten years earlier at the age of sixteen by a rakish soldier who died shortly after, she finds herself pregnant.  She must give the baby up, keeping the entire matter a secret to avoid scandal.  To make up for her past indiscretion, she has become a paragon, the perfect lady, but one who has resigned herself to the fact that she will never marry, for how could she ever explain the fact she is not a virgin on her wedding night? 

Over the past ten years, Charlotte has perfected the art of avoiding marriage, without making it look deliberate.  Although she has a sizable dowry and is beautiful as well, she has managed to make herself boring and unappealing to every suitor that has come her way.  But the time has come when she's going to have to marry.  Her father insists she marry and is not taking no for an answer.

Now, about this same time, Darius Carsington moves into the neighborhood to take over a crumbling estate his father has given him.  Darius, a younger son, must prove to his father that he is capable of turning a profit on the neglected farm and buildings - a near impossible feat.  He and Charlotte cross paths, literally tripping over each other, and he immediately is struck by something about her.  He mistakes her for a matron or widow at first, almost as if he can tell she is not a virgin?  Yet, once he finds out she is the unmarried daughter of his neighbor he puts the notion aside, yet something still keeps nagging at him.  Charlotte is drawn to Darius, although she can't stand him at first.  He is obnoxious to her, yet she can't stop the beating and fluttering of her heart when he is nearby.  It's obvious what's going on between them.  Yet, due to her past she will not consider him as a suitor - or anyone else for that matter.  Darius, who is a believer in logic, cannot see the logic in her behavior and he begins to hunt her down and get to the bottom of what's bothering her.  Of course, this only throws them together more and more as she and her stepmother help him redecorate his estate.

In addition to having Darius sniffing around, the story takes a nod from Charles Dickens.  A blond headed ten year old boy is an apprentice that is working on the house.  As the story develops we realize he is Charlotte's long lost son whom she gave away when he was born.  Pip, as he is known as, is an orphan who was put in a work house after his adoptive parents died.  Shades of Oliver Twist.  Luckily, Darius takes an interest in him and the plot line becomes more poignant when Charlotte realizes who he is.  My heart went out to her and her predicament.  Acknowledge him as her own and face scandal and ostracism all her life, or try to forget him?  How can any mother make this decision?  Charlotte has some hard truths to reveal to everyone - her father, whom she loves dearly, Darius, who she has come to love - and young Pip as well.  What will he do when he realizes the beautiful sad lady is his real mother?  What will the world think?  What will Darius think?

Overall, I believe Chase handled Charlotte's dilemma well with all it's various repercussions, though it was a tad sugar coated. She managed to cover the unfairness and double standards towards women back in the day and turned it around by adding a bit of humor and romance with a happy and satisfying outcome.  I did have some issues with the way Darius pursued Charlotte so relentlessly at first, intent on seduction, but he won me over in the end with his total acceptance of Charlotte's situation and how he came to her rescue - her knight in shining armor.  I found I was sympathetic towards everyone involved in this story.  I particularly liked Charlotte's father and stepmother.  

This wasn't my favorite of the series, but it was a nice outcome for Darius who never quite felt he had the respect or good opinion he deserved from his father.  I really loved the way things turned out for him and especially the moment when he learns of his father's approval.   I'm really enjoying reading about the many depths and layers within the Carsington family and am now eager to read the final book in the series.

4/5

Share

Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase

Book Description:
Tall, dark, and handsome, the heir to the Earl of Hargate, Benedict Carsington, is known for his impeccable manners and good breeding. Benedict knows all the rules and has no trouble following them-until Bathsheba Wingate enters his life. Now, the two must embark on a rescue mission that puts them in dangerous, intimate proximity. Fortunately, Benedict is in perfect control-despite his mad desire to break all the rules. Perfect control. Really. 

Quickie Review:
Great madcap story of Lord Perfect Rathbourne who meets and falls (unbeknownst to him) in love with Bathsheba DeLucey Walker, a notorious widow (for various reasons, she doesn't really deserve the moniker). Her twelve year old daughter and his fourteen year old nephew run off together to find (what they think) is a hidden treasure. For days, Rathbourne and Bathsheba must be on the road together in search of them. Some parts were hilarious, some sexy, some poignant and heartwarming. An all around great, great romance, just as they should be.   Another winner from Loretta Chase!

Some parts of this "road trip" romance were simply hilarious!  One scene at inn in which a fight breaks out was a scream.  Bathsheba is no wilting lily.  She is a mother and knows her daughter only too well.  You see, they come from a long line of DeLucey's who are conniving cheats.  Bathsheba didn't seem to inherit the worst of the traits, but she can see her daughter has a flair for being a con artist - and she's not even a teenager yet!  The perfect Benedict finds himself at a loss - how has he fallen into this mess to retrieve his nephew and Bathsheba's daughter?  The notorious Bathsheba - I might add.  She's really not all that notorious, but her dead husband married her knowing his family would disown him - which they did.  To the ton, she's notorious for this reason.  She's also incredibly beautiful.  Guess who falls for her, next?

I loved this book - it was scrumptious reading and now a new favorite! And how about this cover!!

4.5/5

Share

Mr. Impossible by Loretta Chase

Book Description:
Blame it on the Egyptian sun or the desert heat, but as tensions flare between a reckless rogue and beautiful scholar en route to foil a kidnapping, so does love, in the most uninhibited and impossibly delightful ways.

This was a fun regency that takes place amidst the ruins and desert of Egypt.  Daphne Pembroke is a scholarly genius when it comes to Egyptian hieroglyphics and the study of antiquities.  While visiting Egypt to study the pyramids up close, her brother Miles buys her a valuable and ancient papyrus to translate, which is her hobby.  Her hobby must be kept secret for it was frowned upon, back in the day, for a woman to have a hobby other than raising children and keeping house.  From this stems all sorts of trouble.  Convinced the papyrus contains the key to finding a lost treasure, her brother is kidnapped by criminals.  They think he is the only one who can read it.  It turns out it's really Daphne who is the only one who can read the ancient document, (which has also been stolen), but the ruthless kidnappers don't know this yet.

Daphne is a widow - a wealthy widow.  Her late husband, Virgil, was a scholar and nearly three times her age. She didn't regret it when he passed away for he repeatedly tried to smother her intelligence, jealous her brain was smarter than his.  It wasn't only her brain he tried to tamp down.  To hide his own inadequacies in the bedroom, he made her feel that passion was wrong, insisting she was too forward and "mannish."  She needed to be more ladylike and show some decorum in the bedroom.  Naturally, Daphne developed all sorts of guilty feelings about her own sexuality, afraid that there was something wrong with her that she needed to be kept bottled up.

That is until she meets Rupert Carsington - Mr. Impossible.

Tall, dark and handsome with an irresistible smile and charm, he is famous for being a hellion.  The fourth son to Lord Hargate, a well known peer in England, Rupert is sent to Egypt as a last resort - to get rid of him and hope he'll lose some of his hellion-ish ways.  Naturally, as soon as Rupert arrives in Cairo, he gets in a fight and lands himself in jail.  Wherever Rupert goes the local consuls are all too familiar with having to get him out of trouble.  Rupert's used to it, you've seen one jail you've seen them all - plus someone always get him out.  It's always the same routine until he meets the widowed Mrs. Pembroke with her luscious red hair and large green eyes.  The two body parts that are just about the only parts of her body he can see under her black veil and widow's weeds.  Daphne has come to the jail because she has heard about him and is in need of someone who can accompany her to find her brother - basically, she needs a bodyguard and he's English, big and knows how to fight.  She springs Rupert out of jail and he plays at being her big brawny lummox of a bodyguard.

The two of them set off on a sort of odyssey sailing up the Nile, visiting various spots in search of her brother Miles, who is trying his best to escape from his captors without getting himself killed.  He's caught between two warring factions, one is a Frenchman named Duval who is after the papyrus and the other is an Englishman, Lord Noxley (aka Lord Noxious, as nicknamed by Rupert), an acquaintance of Miles' and Daphne's in Cairo.  Little do they know he's really known as the feared "Golden Devil," a psychopath who will do anything to get the same papyrus.

Soon enough Daphne is having a hard time avoiding Rupert as a man and imagining what it would be like to make love to him.  He's having the same thoughts, naturally.  Yet, he knows he must take it slow - she's a prickly thing and as much as she finds him attractive - he's also annoying!  He's impossible!  He loves to bait her by acting like a dumb ox when really it's all just an act.  She finds him exasperating on all fronts - whether it's over something he said or the way he smells so manly and provocative when he gets close to her.  Often they find themselves in some conveniently close quarters while fleeing murderers and thieves in dark enclosed spaces while on their journey to find her brother.

This book was a romance but it's also a bit like an adventure story.  Daphne and Rupert, in search for her brother, run into all sorts of danger and fall for each other along the way.  It takes them forever to figure out it's love.  A few steamy scenes cement the relationship, but it's complicated for Daphne is convinced once their adventure ends he'll find her boring - and it's never really occurred to Rupert she'd want to marry him!  She's already turned him down once when he threw out the idea - rather too casually.  Having asked her once and been rejected, he's hesitant to ask again.  But, love wins out in the end!  Rupert helps Daphne overcome her insecurities, loving both her passion - and her large brain!  She finds she can't live without her big charming lummox, particularly after a close call when she thinks she's lost him for good. 

As much as I had fun with this book and there many humorous moments, there were some parts that dragged and I couldn't help compare it to other books I've read that were better, such as  Crocodile on the Sandbank and As You Desire.  Still, Mr. Impossible was pretty good and Daphne and Rupert made a great couple, I loved the way she found him so exasperating!   I also loved the epilogue, one of the best I've read!  If nineteenth century Egyptian archaeologists fleeing from bad guys while finding time to fall in love are your thing - you'll love this book!

4/5

Share

Miss Wonderful by Loretta Chase

Book Description:
Alistair Carsington really, really wishes he didn't love women quite so much. To escape his worst impulses, he sets out for a place far from civilization: Derbyshire - in winter! There he hopes to kill two birds with one stone: avoid all temptation - and repay the friend who saved his life on the fields of Waterloo. But this noble aim drops him straight into opposition with Miss Mirabel Oldridge, a woman every bit as intelligent, obstinate, and devious as he--and maddeningly irresistible. Mirabel Oldridge already has her hands full keeping her brilliant and aggravatingly eccentric father out of trouble. The last thing she needs is a stunningly attractive, oversensitive, and overbright aristocrat reminding her she has a heart--not to mention a body he claims is so unstylishly clothed that undressing her is practically a civic duty. Could the situation be any worse? And why does something so wrong feel so very wonderful?

So far the romances I've read by Loretta Chase have been pretty good overall.  One, in particular, was great, Lord of Scoundrels.  One of my favorites.  Unfortunately Miss Wonderful wasn't bad but it wasn't great either.  The main plotline besides the romance between the hero and heroine wasn't all that compelling to me - it involved a proposal.  No, not a marriage proposal.  It was a proposal to build a canal.  Our heroine, Mirabel, didn't want it to go through her property and the hero, Alistair did.  As an investor in the canal's success, he was sent to her county in England to enlist the support and approval from the local landowners, one of which is her father.  Naturally, Mirabel and Alistair are on opposite sides of the equation, but Alistair has a tendency to fall in love easily and as soon as he sees her, he is smitten.  Mirabel finds him handsome and the attraction between them is mutual, but she will not budge on the canal issue, taking over the duties and voice of her preoccupied and flora obsessed father.  Her answer was an unequivocal no in regard to the canal, and she would not give in, no matter what her feelings for Alistair.  In or out of bed.

As much as the book had it's steamy and humorous moments, for the most part I felt the whole plotline regarding the canal and Mirabel's stubbornness by not giving in to the idea - annoying.  There were funny bits of humor and I liked Alistair, but at first I thought he was way too fussy and a dandy about his clothes. But by the end, I liked how the storyline deepened, and we realize that Alistair is not just a superficial dandy.  We get the background on him and it is explained why his clothing obsession (a la Beau Brummel) was a sort of post traumatic stress disorder he got after nearly dying at Waterloo.  Since then, he has had to live down the idea that he is some kind of war hero which he felt undeserving.  All he did was survive the battle - with a limp.  Witnessing so much blood and carnage, he suffers inwardly from survivor guilt which has turned him into a clothes horse, thus becoming the fashion expert amongst the Regency ton.   I sympathized with him and also appreciated the parallel  regarding Mirabel's father's botany obsession that manifested after the death of his beloved wife and mother to Mirabel.

Still, Mirabel's fixation on not allowing the canal was bothersome, it was a pesky plot point that I wished would just go away.  Especially, how she was willing to go against Alistair, even after seducing him!  Spinster that she is at the age of thirty-one, (she's older than him by two years) she goes for, what she perceives as, the last chance to lose her virginity and see what it's all about.  Alistair protests at first, but he's only human.  Honor be damned!  The woman is tossing her stockings at him and stripping off her clothes - what's he to do?  Plus, he wasn't quite himself, recovering from an accident to the head.  

Mirabel, in my opinion, did too many things that seemed out of character for her.  Once she meets Alistair she goes from the prim and proper, well respected daughter of the county's primary gentleman landowner to the local sleep a-around!  (Okay, I'm exaggerating.)  I couldn't quite get it though, how could she feel so attracted to Alistair when they were at such odds against one another?   What compelled her to choose him?  I felt that Alistair needed some growing up to do.  He came across as a sort of lightweight hero, but he grows up over the course of the book, yet nothing overly swoonworthy or notable about him. I felt like she was always leading Alistair on, despite wearing the hideous clothes and hairdos to deliberately repel him.  Was it because she wanted a last stab at romance and he was around and interested?

She climbs up a ladder to his room in the daytime (as if no one would notice a ladder propped up against the side of the house outside his window in broad daylight?) and enters his sick room with every intention of having an afternoon of mad passion and enlightenment into the mysteries of sex - despite the fact she is trying to thwart his every move about the canal.  He's still somewhat recovering from a blow to the head from a rock in a stream (an accident prone kind of hero) and succumbs to her charms.  It was actually one of the more entertaining parts of the book.  He makes a gallant effort to forestall her attempts at seduction but his libido rules over his good sense and Mirabel gets her way.  But... but... afterwards it just didn't sit right with me.  Mirabel still plotted behind his back by making him look like he's not quite right in the head... it just didn't sit well with me even though she felt like she was falling in love with him!  WTF?  I didn't like that and it shaded my impression of her and the book overall.   It all ends well with  a reasonable solution to their fundamental difference of opinion, but overall, I couldn't have cared less about the damn canal and whether it was built or not!

Alas, the book just didn't do it for me, unlike some of the other Chase books I've read.  Still, I have high hopes for the future of this series and reading about Alistair's brothers, younger and older. 

On a last note, I still don't understand why this book is titled, Miss Wonderful.   I guess it's catchy, but not very apropos to the storyline.  Mirabel was far from wonderful in my estimation, although she finally comes around in the end, but it was like pulling teeth to get her to do it!

3.5/5

Share