Candice Hern

Candice Hern took a real risk here by creating a hero with so many objectionable qualities and behaviors. There were times I barely liked Jack enough to continue rooting for him. BUT both of the main characters were so psychologically complex and interesting, and their story was so compelling, that I had difficulty setting the book aside. By the end, I couldn’t put it down, and the day's housework had to be pushed back by about an hour, but...it was a sacrifice I was willing to make in show more order to find out how the story ended 😉. I definitely plan to read the other two books in the trilogy! show less

Rosalind Lacey, eldest daughter of Sir Edmund Lacey of Wycombe Hall in Devon, is indeed on a mission. She believes that she has inherited her mother's terminal illness and thus, only has a few months to live. She has taken stock of her life: she is a 26-year-old spinster who stepped into her mother's role at 14 and has pretty much raised her siblings ever since. Her two sisters are married, one brother is off to university and the youngest boys - twins - have been settled at Harrow. It's show more time for her to have a chance to do something for herself, and she knows just what she wants to do. She wants to go to London, during the Season, and experience all of the sights, sounds, and delights to be had. She wants her father's sister Fanny to accompany her. Fanny has long been the black sheep of the family; she has lived an extroverted, extravagant life as a wealthy widow with a string of titled lovers. If anybody can show Rosie what the Season is all about, it's Aunt Fanny.

Fanny has not been close to her brother since his marriage, and is not looking forward to the arrival of a meek little country mouse. As the novel opens, she is complaining of her plight to her friend Max Devenant, a 36-year-old rakehell who is utterly bored with life. He is so bored, in fact, that he is seriously considering taking the self-same route as his best friend, Freddie Moresby, who killed himself earlier in the year. Max keeps Moresby's suicide note tucked into his waistcoat as a reminder that there is a way out of a life not worth living.

Max is the son of Fanny's one true love, Basil Devenant, and they have known each other for years. Max is a younger son dangling at loose ends. His parents are gone, his siblings are married and/or busy with careers, and he has no especial interest in anything. He supports himself by gambling, and has focused on pleasure for the vast majority of his life.

Neither Fanny nor Max are impressed when Rosie arrives, dressed in dowdy shapeless brown, but Max immediately senses there's something beyond country mouse when he makes an outrageous pass at Rosie and she does not swoon in fear in response. Indeed, after Max leaves, Rosie tells Fanny exactly what her plans are, and that the first thing she wants to do is make herself over.

The transformation is complete in under a week, and Rosie is so pleased and excited with all the possibilities that she considers herself to be playing a role, of the dashing Rosalind, doing all the outrageous, Society-breaking things that prim and proper Rosie would never dare attempt. She is an instant hit, with her scarlet red dresses, fashionably cropped hair, and her will to try absolutely everything in sight. She even has a list of things she wishes to accomplish before she dies, and it includes driving a sporting vehicle, visiting the great museums, attending every kind of event available (both fashionable and not), and being thoroughly kissed by a rake.

Fanny is a proud mother hen as she parades Rosalind all around town, and Max finds himself just as smitten with her as the rest of the population of single men. Rosie throws caution to the wind and makes a spectacle of herself, but she could care less - she's about to die, what good is it to constrain herself to Society's ridiculous rules? And Max is everything she could ever want: kind to her, but handsome and funny as well, with a wicked wit and practiced wiles. After being thoroughly kissed, she decides she wants more - and she gets it, in one perfect evening that she will never, ever forget.

Everything is going so beautifully that not even the appearance of her university-bound brother (or her odious uncle) can stop her momentum. Rosie has told no one of her medical condition, but does consult a London physician when a few troubling symptoms begin to reappear. Only then does she learn that she does not have her mother's fatal illness - that she isn't going to die - and suddenly everything she has done over the last few months comes crashing down around her. If she's going to live, can she live with the idea of thumbing her nose at everything and everyone, of bringing shame upon herself and her family? She decides she can't, and flees back to Devon to confess everything to her father and beg his forgiveness.

Sir Edmund has taken a bit of stock himself since Rosie has been in London, and realizes that he has been a horribly neglectful parent, lost in his own grief for his wife these last twelve years. He's put so much on Rosie that he never meant to, and when Rosie tells him of her fears of dying like her mother did, he feels even worse for keeping his wife's condition a secret from the children. Edmund is a pretty spectacular father here, because he does not shame or scold or do anything other than beg Rosie's forgiveness for his own transgressions, and tells her that she deserved to have the happiness she did in London.

Rosie is beside herself with shame, however, and retreats into her country mouse shell. Even after Max finds out why she left (he was so hurt and upset, thinking it was something he did to drive her away), chases after her, and begs her to marry him, she refuses. She doesn't believe she can be the wild and devil-may-care Rosalind that she was in London, not without the death sentence hanging over her.

Edmund and Fanny conspire to bring Rosalind back to London and reconnect her with Max, believing that if they put the two back in proximity to each other, the rest will fall into place. It is a dangerous plan, but it ultimately works. Remember that suicide note that Max carries around? He accidently drops it, Rosie fears that he is the one who wrote it, and rushes off to stop him from killing himself. If he ever tells her the truth about the note (that it was written by his friend), it happens off page. This was the only bit of the story that I didn't like.

Otherwise, I found this absolutely delightful! Rosie was determined to live every day as if it were her last, and she inspired Max to realize that life could be worth living - with the right person at his side. Even Aunt Fanny seizes the day and consents to marry her own lifelong admirer at the end.

I really enjoyed the way the characters were drawn: bright, vivacious, full of life. Rosalind in London did things and said things that so many others could only dream of doing; she got to see everything she wanted and even though she was not looking for a husband, she managed to find one anyway. Rosie and Max were nicely balanced; even though Rosie was a touch too stubborn, she didn't really spend a lot of time wallowing in her shame on page. Aunt Fanny was an excellent "chaperone" and very interesting in and of herself. Rosie's dash off to London made a lot of people realize a lot of different things, and I liked that the whole family was reconciled at the end.

The prose was airy and light, events moved along at a really nice clip, and the romance was, indeed, very romantic for a trad Regency. show less

Jack Raeburn, Marquess of Pemerton, is eyeing the eligible ladies at a society ball one evening when a little imp of a woman sidles up beside him and offers her opinion of his potential matches. Jack is amused by the woman's cheerfully frank remarks, with which he finds himself agreeing. She (re-)introduces herself to him: Lady Mary Haviland, daughter of the late Earl of Assheton; they had been formally introduced at the wedding of Lord and Lady Bradleigh (Lord Bradleigh being a chum of show more Jack's, and the new Lady Bradleigh being a friend of Mary's). Mary has cultivated a somewhat eccentric reputation among Society; she quite happily admits to being old, plain, and happily on the shelf, and thus, is interested in making lots of friends, no matter how 'proper' this behavior is considered by the ton. When Jack confirms that he is, indeed, in the market for a wife, Mary announces that she'll be happy to play matchmaker for him - he may have the title, but he also has a horrible reputation, and she has the connections in Society to overcome this social handicap.

Mary's friend Olivia is horrified at this newest pal. She's never really approved of any of Mary's unorthodox friends, but senses something especially dangerous about the practiced whiles of Jack Raeburn. Mary dismisses her friend's worries and sets about compiling lists of eligible debutantes, hoping to steer her newest friend into the path of happiness that her dear friend Emily, Lady Bradleigh, is now walking.

Mary has no compunction about herself or her reputation as an oddball. She was horribly abused as a child (something that she hides very well behind her relentlessly cheerful mask), and is especially vulnerable about it, but she doesn't kid herself that she's really a diamond of the first water - or that there's anything wrong with being a spinster. She inherited all of her mother's wealth and thus, can live independently, and she sets about forging an adulthood that more than makes up for her childhood, spent isolated and alone with only her father, who tormented her for having the gall to live while her mother died in childhood.

Needless to say, the Earl of Assheton was not a nice guy, and this was known, albeit obliquely, in Society circles.

As for Jack, well - he was a younger son of a marquess who came into the title after a horrible accent that took the lives of his father, his two older brothers, and his young nephew. He didn't want the title, but he assumes the responsibility - only to learn that his has six estates mortgaged to the hilt and is desperate need of funds. His only true qualification in a potential bride is that she be very, very wealthy. He is far too proud to admit this to anyone, however, as he doesn't want to be labeled a fortune hunter.

He's pleased to have Mary's help as he searches for a suitable wife. She is quite refreshing, and the first female friend Jack has ever had. He feels like he can be himself around her, both the practiced libertine - she laughs uproariously at every flirtation he throws her way - and the regular man he is underneath the façade. He doesn't tell her about his desperate need for money, but when he finds out that she is incredibly wealthy, he decides to seduce HER into a marriage that will save his family.

After all, she is - by her own admission - old, plain, and firmly on the shelf. How could she possibly resist the full force of his charm and seduction? She should be flattered that he'd propose to her, because its not like she's got suitors knocking down her doors.

Oh, how much I loathed Jack for this. Various friends and family members warn him that her father was not quite right, but he dismisses their talk as mere chitchat/gossip. Mary is such a strong, confident, sunny woman, how could she ever have possibly suffered in her life? 🙄 He, of course, knows suffering: he was jilted by his first love, thrown over mere days before his wedding for an earl. That woman was a fortune hunter, and of course that colored his ideas of such types and drove him into his dissolute lifestyle of alcohol, gambling, and women.

So Jack sets about convincing Mary that he wants to marry her, of course not mentioning the real reason why he's suddenly set his sights on her. Mary is skeptical, tries to make a case that she isn't the right woman for him, being old and plain and...."not innocent." She tells him of a foiled elopement from her teens, which Jack takes to forever be what everyone's hinting at when they talk about her fragility. He plows across all of her objections, demonstrates his physical desire for her, and she eventually relents and agrees to marry him.

Jack is delighted and super smug about managing to pull off such a coup, without Mary ever knowing the real reason why he wants to marry her.

They go on to visit his primary estate in Devon, meet his mother, sisters-in-law, and nieces, and the prepare for the wedding. Everyone adores Mary, and she adores them, finally having a family to call her own. There are some exquisitely touching scenes at Pemerton Manor between Jack and one of his traumatized nieces, and between Mary and Jack's mother. They are written so well, and pack such an emotional punch, that I found myself wiping away tears.

Then, of course, then inevitable happens: Mary learns of Jack's original motives for marrying her, and she bolts the day before their wedding, feeling stunned, betrayed, and more than a little foolish. Her father's words come back to haunt her all over again, and she's absolutely crushed.

When Jack learns that she's run away, he's furious - how could she do this to him?! How could it happen again, after the first love?! I wanted to reach through the book and throttle him, honestly. I mean, how fucking selfish can you get?! The whole time of their engagement, I was thinking of a line from Designing Women, when Mary Jo's ex-husband, Ted, comes sniffing around for a reconciliation. "When I hear you talk about us, all I hear is what I can do for you." That's ALL that Jack thinks about: what Mary can do for him, what her money can do for his estates, how she brings happiness and light everywhere she goes.

Well, Jack, WTF do you have to offer her? Nothing but your own selfishness. He doesn't bother to learn anything about Mary beyond the surface she presents to the world: the hardened outer shell she's developed as an abuse survivor. Everyone else in his life has seen beyond this façade, except for him. And in the moment of her leaving, when literally everyone else in his family and among his friends is concerned about what could've possibly happened to make her suddenly turn tail and leave, he's indulging in a gigantic pity party. UGH.

It was nice to see his friends and family call him to task for this idiotic behavior, but of course he also runs away, back to London to indulge in all his vices, bedding a different woman every night in order to erase Mary's memory. He claims that he loves her, but I never saw it on the page. He finally goes after her, six weeks later, and of course wins her back with a Grand Romantic Gesture, but it was definitely a case of too little, too late for me. Mary deserved so much more than Jack could offer her; its a pity she settled for him.

But for the awfulness that was the "hero," I enjoyed reading this book. The writer has a deft touch with characters (there was a secondary romance between Mary's companion, Olivia, and Jack's uncle Edward which was quite touching and sweet). I really liked Mary and the way she had forged a life for herself, on her own terms. As I mentioned before, there are some beautifully written emotional passages at Pemerton Manor that tugged at my heartstrings. I'm curious about the other books in this trio - Lord Bradleigh, the hero of the first novel, and Lord Sedgewick, the hero of the third. I'll definitely seek out their stories, and hope that they are more worthy of their wives than Jack is. show less

Ugh, what a dreadfully clunky, boring book. As the first installment of the Merry Widows series, it doesn't seem to bode well for the books to follow. There was nothing merry about my reading experience here. The characters were so bland and superficial, the dialogue so awkward. Even worse, the talking was as endless as the succession of tedious balls and tea parties. This book was just talk, talk, talk, none of it going anywhere.

Besides being boring, the premise of the book is a complete show more sham. It opens with a group of five friends, all widows, who decide to make a pact. Their husbands may be in the grave, but these widows, they declare, certainly are not. With the exception of one, they determine to take advantage of the lax standards of propriety applied to widows in order to get a little pleasure out of life. They plan to take lovers. It may sound unconventional, but the plot and characters all hold to the trite rules and expectations of society, genre, and gender. The heroine takes some tentative steps towards exploring the possibility of sexual freedom, all the while reluctant and unsure, but she's just as psychologically and emotionally tied to her one true love as if she had never undertaken such a daring enterprise in the first place.

Perhaps in an effort to make things a bit more complex and/or difficult for our two lovers, the author refers every once and a while to the heroine's departed husband, who was also the hero's best friend. But the relationships in this poor excuse for a love triangle are never more than sketchily depicted. Even as she was married to her husband (though of course, as she was married to him she loyally loved him, or at least *thought* she did), even though she starts out just "friends" with the hero, and even throughout her failed attempts to pursue other lovers, the author manages to twist things around so that it's always been the hero for her. Always and forever, the end. A woman like this heroine, she is repeatedly told by the hero, could never be happy with just sex. She’s programmed for marriage. Bla. Again I say bla! (Not to the idea or institution of marriage itself - I'd have a hard time reading romances in that case - but to In the Thrill of the Night, resoundingly yes.) If this wasn't enough, the hero is nothing to get excited over: a vacillating, deceitful, cowardly adolescent. I wouldn't be so annoyed if this book had only owned up to being so unoriginal. As it is, the book just adds the insult of insincerity to the injury of being badly written. show less