Laura Kinsale

Wow. I was not prepared for that. This book is EPIC. Sheridan and Olympia are some of the most complex characters with the most dramatic story arcs I've encountered in a romance novel. I picked this up for the chubby, inscure heroine, and ended up reading all 453 pages straight. It's got a bit of the problematic old-school romance stuff going on (hero is cruel to heroine, racist portrayals of Arabs) but it is actually much more complex than that stuff usually is. As someone who has loved show more (and been deeply hurt by) a combat veteran with PTSD, Sheridan's words and actions struck such a cord with me that I went through a box of Kleenex in the span of hours. So. Accurate. It was painful to read. And I cannot begin to describe how much I love that helping Olympia cope with her trauma is such a part of Sheridan's healing process. It's like this book was written with me in mind. My only complaint is that I could really have used an epilogue. I just felt like the ending was too abrupt for the long journey the book took me on. I have had my eye on this book forever, I cannot believe it took me this long to read it!!! show less

There are two conflicts here--Maddy's internal conflict about marrying someone outside her religious circle and Christian's external conflict with his family as they try to control him and his wealth. The book would have been more enjoyable if it had spent more time on Christian's conflict with his family and less on Maddy's conflict with herself. It was easy to pull for him in his fight with his family, and it was easy to root against them because they were dreadful. That storyline was the show more one that kept me reading, and it got short shrift and no satisfying denouement. It was suddenly resolved and dropped because it was secondary to Maddy's internal struggle. Her struggle was too long and too repetitive. After she spent weeks scolding him and judging him harshly for everything without ever saying or thinking anything good about him and left him for the fifth time, the relationship wasn't convincing and she wasn't likable. She was just too priggish and his devotion to her too incomprehensible to have their eventually ending up together be the satisfying ending that 500 pages of reading calls for. On the other hand, the comeuppance of his grasping in-laws, sisters, and mother would have been glorious, but it never happened.

I appreciate the originality of the trigger for their forced proximity and forced marriage as his severe health problems and her believably unique patience with them, rather than cookie-cutter reasons such as snowstorms and manipulative wills. I also appreciate the novelty of having Maddy's struggle with Christian center around her religious views, which are treated respectfully and not contemptuously, rather than the usual irrational-hate-at-first-sight and endless misunderstandings that plump most romance books to novel length. I loved the lack of senseless banter as filler. No one makes stupid decisions whose only conceivable purpose is to lead to the next conflict. The anxiety and insecurity and overthinking of the main characters are reasonable, not irrational and (again) only there to get the book to novel length. And wonderfully, Maddy's independence and stubbornness are plausible for the character, not just another 21st-century girl written into the 19th-century. This book was refreshingly free of predictable and repetitive stock tropes and could have been great. Instead, the beginning was too slow and the ending was too long and Maddy was too fussy and the only interesting conflict was neglected. Ultimately, it was decent but disappointing. show less

Laura Kinsale is not your flufflifity fluff romantic. And yet, somehow, she has some of the most fluffity fluff "dear god, I wish this hero would strip me naked too," moments mixed with some of the best humor.

The most eligible widower in His Majesty’s domain: rich, titled, powerful, and more than passably attractive, if his female admirers were to be believed—flatly refused, on account of a broken kite.

It's very clear there's a few things I like in books:
-Heroines that I understand. I show more know we all wax on about 'strong women' and I frankly don't know what that means. I think strength can be demonstrated in many ways. Merlin was essentially super smart, super ambitious and kind of a flake. In all honesty, it suited an inventor and I don't think we'd call a male character like her 'weak' -- It may have been overplayed, but ]...eh, I have a complex relationship with that.
-Relationships that develop. In this book, that was fucking bizarre and I'm not gonna lie. While it may have been a head-scratcher, I went with it. I mean, it was Nicholas Boulton and Laura Kinsale and there's nothing else to be done. What resulted was a battle of wills, a jackass that knows he is manipulative, and a heroine with enough force in her sweetness to bring him down, yet enough tenacity to hold on to herself. And honestly, I loved Ransom. I really, really did. He was lovely and loyal, commanding, clever, and played beautifully by NB in the audio version.

He’d thought his offer of marriage was a matter of duty, of taking responsibility for errors committed—and never questioned why he’d persisted in it past all reason and rebuff.

Well, now he knew why. The explanation sat patiently on the carpet in front of him, with chestnut hair and cloudy gray eyes and skin that glowed like soft midsummer moonlight. He loved her; he wanted to stand beside her forever, be the man she turned to for comfort and companionship; the one she went to first with those crazy, clever notions of hers; the one who listened and smiled and knew when to laugh—who recognized the difference between her accidental absurdities and the rare times she made an authentic quip in that quiet, ingenious way she had.

Oh, and that's it. That's all I need. I get extra-some heat, wonderful family and supporting dynamics, a little danger, some big weaknesses. It was a lovely little novel about two opposite strengths making one completely convincing and supportive couple. They were neither dependent nor overly independent of one another, something I can see lasting for a long, long time. Because they both try.

Wings, indeed. show less

Wow. I was not prepared for that. This book is EPIC. Sheridan and Olympia are some of the most complex characters with the most dramatic story arcs I've encountered in a romance novel. I picked this up for the chubby, inscure heroine, and ended up reading all 453 pages straight. It's got a bit of the problematic old-school romance stuff going on (hero is cruel to heroine, racist portrayals of Arabs) but it is actually much more complex than that stuff usually is. As someone who has loved show more (and been deeply hurt by) a combat veteran with PTSD, Sheridan's words and actions struck such a cord with me that I went through a box of Kleenex in the span of hours. So. Accurate. It was painful to read. And I cannot begin to describe how much I love that helping Olympia cope with her trauma is such a part of Sheridan's healing process. It's like this book was written with me in mind. My only complaint is that I could really have used an epilogue. I just felt like the ending was too abrupt for the long journey the book took me on. I have had my eye on this book forever, I cannot believe it took me this long to read it!!! show less