Guardian Angel

Second book in a series that can be read as a stand alone, but as with most series, you’d have a better appreciation for secondary characters Lyon and Christina if you read their story, The Lion’s Lady, first.

When the War Department let’s Caine and his family know that his brother was killed by the notorious pirate, Pagan, the Marquess, with nothing but vengeance on his mind, sets a trap for the pirate. He’s derailed when a young woman approaches him, asking him to kill her. Others are after her and she prefers to die on her own terms. Little does he know that his hunt for the pirate has put his life his in danger. But Jade, the very ditzy-sounding woman he’s now protecting is not only Pagan, but she’s there to protect show more him.

As with all of the author’s historicals, this one is loaded with chaotic humor, most often in the form of dialogue. The characters and dialogue are something the author does really well. A mystery involving the War Department takes up a good chunk of the story and it actually gets pretty deep; perhaps a little too much. But through it we are introduced to the heroes for the next two stories, The Gift and Castles.

Originally released back in 1990, while not quite a bodice-ripper, the male is strong, domineering, and of course he knows best, with the female having to be convinced that being with him is what she needs most. While coming across as a ditz, Jade is smart, determined and vulnerable.

I’ve read these books so many times over the years and find the humor and characters provide an enjoyable escape. show less

Ha! I love this cover and it's the one that is on the book I currently own. Look, the reason why this one has such a high mark from me is that it's a pirate romance. Come on. The main reason why it didn't hit 5 stars for me like the latter books is that after a while it felt like a lot of stuff got handwaved away. Also the book drags in parts. This was a fun ride though. You also get a scene with prior characters, Christina and Lyon in this one.

"Guardian Angel" follows the Marquess of Cainewood, called Caine, who is determined to hunt down the pirate Pagan who he believes murdered his brother Colin. Colin he finds out later on was employed secretly by the "Crown" and Caine is determined to pretend to be Pagan in order to lure the real show more one out. However, he is approached by a young girl who wants to hire him to kill her. The young woman, Lady Jade, believes she is going to be murdered soon and doesn't want someone else to do it who may hurt her in the process. Of course, Caine, decides he will keep Jade safe, and then the book follows the two of them as Jade's hiring of Caine (as Pagan) is revealed.

Jade was such a kick to me. I do feel a bit sad about how her character kind of went "blah" in the remaining books in the series though. She got married and became much less interesting. I don't want to reveal too much in this one, but I enjoyed reading about her upbringing, and also why she had such nightmares.

Caine was an interesting character in this, wanting to revenge himself on the person he believes murdered his younger brother. And I thought it was interesting to have him fall for Jade first and tell her how much he loved her. I think in most of Garwood's books the opposite happens (the heroine realizes she loves the hero first).

There's also a plot point dealing with Caine's stepmother that actually made me smile a bit. No spoilers, but I liked how that was dealt with. Most of the book at times was pretty funny to me. It's very much a whose on first thing going on for a good portion of it.

Though I found the writing to be good, I will admit after a while I started to get bored. Garwood repeats a lot of things in order to show both sides of things via Caine/Jade and I started to skim after a while.

The ending had a nice surprise and I enjoyed how it was done.

I also read this for Cannonball Read 14 Book Bingo. This fits the following bingo circle:

Snake: A book about snakes; snakes have positive and negative associations – a character can be a snake if they are a liar, but snakes also represent creativity, transformation, fertility, and healing; that book on your TBR that you’ve always been afraid of!
I think this fits because both Caine and Jade are lying about a whole lot of things and they both do in the end heal by the end of the book. show less

This one had a fair amount of potential but ended up falling a bit short for me. I liked the heroine, though her trust issues went on forever (and I'm not certain they were really even justified to begin with) and that definitely started to wear, and she went a little down hill once she started guarding the hero's pride all the time. *eye roll* But the hero just didn't connect with me I guess. I'm willing to overlook some flaws, but this guy was constantly losing his temper and was kind of selfish, and there were multiple instances where he 'wanted to strangle the heroine with his bare bands' or something. =/ I'm just not terribly impressed by that sort of man. To me, rather than manly they just come off desperate to be seen as show more dominant. This book is 30 years old, so probably most of my problems with it stem from aspects that were common in HR at that time but that writers have largely moved past now. I'll likely still finish this series though. show less

Guardian Angel is the second book in Julie Garwood's Crown’s Spies series. Although I don’t believe he was introduced in the first book, The Lion’s Lady, this story features Lyon’s best friend, Caine, another spy who worked for Sir Richards in service of his country. He’s paired with Jade, a strong-willed and rather mysterious young lady who comes asking for his help. Julie Garwood has a reputation for writing light-hearted stories, especially with some of her historicals, and this one was perhaps a bit lighter than most. In addition to spies, we also get a taste of pirates – although no high-seas action – and a touch of mystery, all of which lead to a fun, rollicking, mad-cap adventure. I have to admit that without this show more humorous take on things, certain elements of the story would have been pretty unbelievable, but the lighter tone helped me to not take it too seriously. The story also has some emotional and romantic moments that were the icing on the cake. This book might not have reached the pinnacle of perfection for me, but it was, nonetheless, a pretty enjoyable read.

Caine is a man out for revenge. Because of evidence he was given by the government, he believes a notorious pirate known as Pagan is responsible for the death of his younger brother. Caine is in the midst of an undercover operation in which he’s posing as Pagan in hopes of ferreting out the real pirate, when he’s approached by a young woman named Jade, who asks for his help in killing someone for her. After a roundabout conversation, Jade admits that the person she wants him to kill is herself. Both confused and intrigued, Caine isn’t about to harm the lovely lady, so he offers her his protection from the men who are after her instead. She finally accepts, but only if he stays with her day and night for the next two weeks. During that time, he finds himself falling madly in love with her in spite of her confusing and infuriating behavior, but then he discovers that she’s been lying to him about some very important details of her story. I have to admit that Caine fell in love rather quickly and easily, with very little thought going into it, so I wasn’t entirely sure of the reasons why he did. However, despite my slight misgivings, I admit that it made him a pretty appealing hero, because he was the first to declare his love and it also placed him in dogged pursuit of Jade. He can be a tad high-handed at times, but not irritatingly so. I also think that, in some ways, he needed to be in order to win Jade over, because she was definitely the reluctant party in their relationship. In this respect, I have to give him props for finding creative ways to get around her fears to make things work between them.

Jade is a woman who harbors a whole lot of secrets, but she was telling Caine the truth about dangerous men burning down her brother’s house and carriage and that they were also trying to kill her. What she doesn’t tell him, though, is that she can handle herself, and that she’s really there to protect him, not the other way around. In order to do that, she must keep Caine with her, at all costs, for the next two weeks until her brother, Nathan, returns to meet up with her. The more time Jade spends with him, the more she finds herself caring for him, and even choosing to give him her innocence, but she doesn’t believe a long-term relationship with him is possible, partly because of who she is and partly because of fears over Caine leaving her. I have to admit that while I generally liked Jade, I found myself wanting more information on her background. A lot of her colorful persona is chalked up to her being raised by her Uncle Harry, who’s a pirate, but I wanted to know exactly how she came to be in such a respected position. It’s all very cute, but sometimes, she seemed a bit featherbrained for the type of work in which she was engaging. Her fears surrounding Caine getting tired of her and possibly leaving her appear to be rooted in the fact that both Harry and Nathan left her several times throughout her life. While I appreciated her vulnerability, her characterization never went quite deep enough for me to fully understand those fears. Instead, she’s merely a humorously stubborn heroine, which I suppose was rather amusing in it’s own way.

Early on, I thought that Guardian Angel might earn keeper status from me, because I did find the romance between Caine and Jade rather sweet and endearing. However, the further I read, the more flaws I found. The mystery surrounding the spies and who was trying to kill them, became a bit convoluted and a little hard to follow at times. Also, later in the book, there are some exhaustingly long passages of dialogue with little action or introspection to break them up. In fact, some of the resolution to the mystery is told in dialogue rather than shown, which I thought would have been more engaging. Additionally there was the extreme overabundance of whispering. I was starting to wonder how any of the characters could even hear one another. LOL! I don’t think I’ve ever run across this type of word over-usage in a Julie Garwood book before. Other than these things and the aforementioned character weaknesses, I did enjoy the story. It possesses a certain charm in it’s presentation, and I liked many of the colorful secondary characters, including Nathan, Colin (Castles), and Harry. Nathan’s story is next in The Gift, a book that I’m certain I’ve read before. I don’t really recall the story, though, aside from a vague sense that I liked it, so I look forward to revisiting it soon. show less

I usually love Julie Garwood, but this one was just okay. Everyone seems to have different opinions on this book, so here is one more. The first half of the book for me was good and I was engaged. Then the heroine really started getting on my nerves. She was pretending to be contradictory and ditzy but when she supposedly wasn't pretending anymore, she was still acting the same. The dialogue between Jade and Caine was annoying. He bothered me at times too, but not as much as her. I loved the secondary characters, especially Sterns. It was really difficult for me to finish this one-I had to put it down constantly, just so I could stomach it.

I liked this when I read it when it first came out. These books don't age well though and I think JG tries to hard to make her heroines cute and loveable. They end up annoying cutesy caricatures. Her historical research could use some help too. I like her contemporary stuff better.

2nd in the series. My second favorite couple of the books. Garwood always manages to make the books in this series eye rolling stupid and funny and campy.