Meredith Duran

Your Wicked Heart
4 Stars

Jilted by her viscount fiancé far from home and without a penny to her name, Amanda Thomas goes in search of her absent groom only to learn that he is an imposter. The real viscount, Spencer St. John is convinced that Amanda is a nefarious villain who coerced his naive cousin into a betrothal. The two set out to find the imposter, but end up discovering each other.

A charming love-hate romance albeit one that requires a healthy suspension of disbelief.

Amanda is an show more endearing amalgam of innocence and naivete combined with courage and strength of will. It is difficult to believe that an educated woman of the working class could so easily be deceived by the fake viscount's obvious lies. Nevertheless, once she learns the truth, she is quick to take action and also stands up for herself in the face of the real viscount's fury and accusations.

Spencer is also very engaging. His world-weary cynicism and bitter resentment for being the only responsible person in his family conceals profound loneliness. It is wonderful to see him open up to Amanda's boundless optimism and reveal his tremendous capacity for love.

Duran's writing is eminently readable and she manages to convey a great deal of both characterization and plot in a reasonably short novella. Overall, this is a quick and entertaining read if one can get past the rather ridiculous premise and anachronistic behaviors. I look forward to continuing with the series. show less

in-the-middle-of-the-book-review:
You know how you'll be reading something and someone comes and you have to sort of ... hide the cover? or immediately issue a disclaimer: It's not like THAT! Happens to me with romances and the Bible, mostly. (Although I have since sold my copy of the Bible.)
Yeah, that.
This book shouldn't be a romance. Or maybe it should: the story of its world -- our world -- is sorrowful and dark and agonizingly recognizable. Maybe it needs the junk-licking and fast show more heartbeats to keep a reader from the bottle. It's horrible tormenting vibrant fast-paced misery. I love it. It made me cry.
DON'T YOU JUDGE ME.

finished-the-book-review:

It's a dark and stormy night, tonight, which is appropriate for this season and this longitude and this hour of the day; I have finished this book twice (the second time I cried a lot more) and have begun it again. I don't want to talk about why I cried or why I enjoy it -- that's none of your goddamn business, and no-it-is-not-about-sex -- so let's go straight on to the plot/writing/characterization.
The characters were admirably drawn - I liked Emma and Julian (but bleh: the names bugged me). I liked her not-flowers-and-teacups art. I liked her holding-on-to-the-boat determination, and her PTSD, and her complaints about wine. I liked Julian, too, for not being a jerkass rogue tempered by her beauty and lack of crinolines. I liked his polite shall-we-proceed-upon-your-say-my-lady way of dealing with sex.

I liked (for that reason I will not explicate) their relationship. Especially after the (OMG SPOILER) separation. When you think someone is dead, when you think you've been abandoned, you get REALLY FUCKING PISSED OFF if they come back. You're not happy to see them. You don't go canoodling in corners. You pick fights and throw things and get furious all over again that they can still tear your heart in two. You've been perfectly happy with your sickness and your loss, and now they're come back to prove all your pain was useless and false? FUCK THAT.
You're going to go into the garden and drink now, and if they come to ask for conversation you are going to throw this champagne bottle at their head.

Four stars for a romance novel. Not, you know, as compared to Lolita or whatever.

(update: oh, fuck. it's a five-star book. I GIVE IN TO THE TRUTH.) show less

James Durham, Viscount Sanburne, has been destroying himself for the last four years, ever since his sister was incarcerated in a mental asylum. He blames his father, and the pair of them treat one another with contempt.

Lydia Boyce is a bluestocking who manages her father's antiquities business while he spends his time in Egypt carrying out research which has the potential to change the history of the world. She is blindly loyal to her father. Lydia and James become partners in an show more investigation into artifact smuggling.

I would have liked this book more had it managed to stay away from pop psychology. It has a distinctly modern sensibility and some of the characters behave in ways that would have been unheard of in Victorian England. show less

After surviving a horrific tragedy when the ship Emmaline Martin was sailing to India on sinks and she is the only survivor, she arrives in India and it’s apparent to her that she doesn’t fit in with the rest of English society. She doesn’t hold the same disdain for the people of India that so many of her fellow British residents do. Engaged since she was young to a Colonel in the army there, she is dismayed by his numerous peccadilloes. Then she meets Julian Sinclair and some show more excitement begins in her life. Julian is the heir to a dukedom, but still unaccepted in the exclusive society due to his Indian blood. But there is an attraction between Emmaline and Julian that can’t be denied. When mutiny erupts across the land, Julian takes her to safety and then must leave her to see to his Indian family.
And this is only the first part of the book. The second half takes place five years later back in England. Julian thought that Emmaline died in the mutiny and Emmaline thinks that Julian abandoned her. When Julian discovers her not only alive, the artist of a series of stunning and scandalous paintings of the rebellion, he also discovers that Emmaline is not the same hopeful yet innocent young woman he had fallen in love with.
Quite simply, I loved this book! I loved Emmaline and the sufferings she has endured. In the second half of the book, she is frozen inside, yet still full of passion and determined to hate Julian for his abandonment. When she discovers the truth; that he searched endlessly for her, she still holds him at arms length due to her actions while still in India. My heart broke for her in everything she went through.
I also enjoyed Julian though he was still a bit of a mystery. We didn’t learn much of him until later in the book.
The writing is powerful and it’s reminiscent of Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye, a book I read and loved years ago.

I know this is a book I’ll reread again! show less