The Lion's Lady

Well, this was a doozy to start off my blog with, I have to say. After an almost solid month of dedicating myself to everything Mary Balogh has ever written, I decided I really had to branch out again and read someone else. (Confessional: it was mostly so I didn’t finish all of Balogh’s books in one go.) I actually remembered liking Garwood’s The Bride quite a bit, so I thought she would be a perfect option.

Wrong.

I generally have a rule about reading old romance novels: I don’t do it. The reputation that romance novels have developed for being chock full of rape and rape and more rape was deservedly earned in the late 70s-early 90s. Hell, it may still be the case, but I’ve, thus far, survived on only stuff that trusted people show more have recommended to me. One of my favourite review sites even had a really good review of this novel! So I was into it! Let’s do this!

Ughhhhh. I should have known to set this one aside when I opened the book and the first chapter (the prologue) features —- a prophetic dream from a Native American shaman. I knew better, but I persisted, because I really liked her previous novel I read! Oh the racism, it burrrrrns.

It turns out, though none of the summaries led to me believe this, this novel is about a very special, very beautiful, very white girl raised by the Dakota. Do the Dakota get to play an actual role in this beyond being the reason this heroine is a Very Special (The MOST Special) Snowflake? Hah! That’ll be the day. No, indeed, on the prologue actually gives them any time to be anything more than a kooky backstory for our heroine, Christina. Because, you see, it’s only their destiny to keep her safe until she can get back to England and Fulfill Her Destiny.

Which is where we pick up in chapter one. She’s been sent off with her (greedy) aunt in order to — well, that’s the crux of the issue. The plot of this novel was flimsy at best. It seems that her destiny is to finally obtain justice for what her mother endured at the hands of her father (treatment we find out about through diary entries at the beginning of each chapter) there’s also something to do with hidden jewels and — God, there’s really no point in detailing it because the plot of the novel never actually matters and is wrapped up in a grand total of about 15 pages at the very end.

But back to our heroine’s first real shindig in England. Did I mention she’s a Princess? She is. Of sorts. Her evil father was an ousted King of some made up place outside of Austria. Naturally. Enter our hero (if he can even sort of be termed that), Lyon (Marquess of Lyonwood) who has never met a woman or a man he can’t get an answer out of (he’s a former spy of sorts) until he meets Christina. Of course. She baffles him and angers him.

That’s a common theme in this story. Lyon descending into rage at the slightest provocation. So much anger. So much rage. So much threatening to harm Christina. So much so that their first kiss comes with him pressing her up against a wall and threatening to strangle her! ALWAYS A GOOD TIME. And while I will admit to enjoying the occasional farce wherein the hero gets frustrated and is like oooomg, this was …. after meeting her for 30 seconds. You see, she didn’t confess all of her secrets to him, so he decided he would force them out of her and when THAT didn’t entirely work he decided to forcibly kiss her (or maybe strangle her). Such charm! Very hero! Much romantic!

The book just continued in this vein the entire time. Christina has weird habits. Christina cuts her hair in grief. Christina doesn’t wear shoes. Christina doesn’t “trust the whites”. (Oh God, the laughter and the tears of aggravation.) Christina mistaking “Lyon” for “Lion”, and you see, her tribe called her their lioness, so it’s destiny.

Though I shouldn’t admit to it at all, all of this I could’ve forgiven if there was any reason at all to care about either Christina or Lyon. There wasn’t one moment where the chemistry or relationship between them felt like — well, anything. It wasn’t even adversarial, it was just non-existent. It was all tell and no show and yet there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot of telling going on either. It was all just chalked up to destiny and everyone went home happy. I guess.

And this is not to even touch upon Lyon’s anger-creating-backstory and his general distrust of all women because the woman he married (though apparently never loved) has an affair with his brother and died in childbirth — giving birth to said brother’s baby while Lyon listened to her wail for him. show less

C (Indifferent).

A white woman raised by Native Americans goes to England to claim her inheritance.

There was a lot about this that was fun, but the handful of problems were too big to get past. The romance begins with assault and leads to a forced marriage (and the woman abandoning her entire life because she found a man). The "spy" stuff that's allegedly so important to one of the main characters is only vaguely hinted at (never explicitly stated, much less relevant to this story). The big scary bad guy who we've been told is going to try to kill the main character just... doesn't bother? And of course there's all the Unresearched Native Americans Written By A White Person issues, which are A Lot.

(Oct. 2025)

This book really appealed to me. My first read by Julie Garwood and I loved it. The focus is on the relationships in this book, more so than on the 'mystery'. I loved the couple interaction. The h was not TSTL - I was a bit worried that the author may have taken the character too far down that aisle, but fortunately, pulled up before she did something 'too stupid'. She just came across as brave and a bit different instead.

The story opens with the Dakota Indians and Christina's advent into their lives - when I read the first couple of pages, I was pretty sceptical that I would enjoy the book. Another couple of pages on, and I was hooked! My main hurdle to 'believability' was that the h had lovely soft white skin despite having been show more raised by Indians in Dakota for the first 16 years of her life. (I can tell you, my skin with fair hair and blue eyes, would be a mess if I lived out in the elements even with all the available skin care products now...) There was also a lot of shouted exchanges between the H/h which seems out of step with that era... A murderous father who seemed to be able to track his runaway wife (h's mother) across the globe and into frontier lands, despite it being the 18th C. And a very gullible and accepting English ton (c'mon, she'd been living as an indian only 2 years prior!). But this is a novel, so you just have to go with the flow...

The story was also incredibly funny in parts. I loved the section where the h drags her mother-in-law off the country. I had tears running down my face from my laughter.

All in all, it is a great read. Despite my critique on believability - I loved the story - none of those factors affected my enjoyment. show less

I haven't been in the mood for anything too "hard" right now. So just delved back into some Julie Garwood books. I still own the "Crown's Spies" books in paperback. My mother bought them for me when I was a teen and I have been touting them from apartment to apartment, and finally my house. I don't re-read this particularly series as I do some of her standalones though. I have to say that I thought that Garwood did a nice job of showcasing Christina's past and her First Nation family. I will say though that this book was written in 1998 so there is some problematic language included in this book. And as some reviewers noted, others in the book are pretty racist about Christina's family and many were upset she didn't correct them. I also show more don't know anything about the whole, cut your hair off thing after someone dies. That feels like something I saw in a movie once, but no idea if this is a thing or not. Also Lyon kind of sucks. I liked other heroes in this series much more than him. He and Christina only pop up in another book, but thankfully you don't really deal with them again.

"The Lion's Lady" follows Christina Bennett. She's an American who has taken over as the young woman to meet during London's newest season. Lyon, Marquis of Lyonwood ends up meeting her and finds himself attracted to her. Most of the book follows as Lyon tries to find out more about Christina and him deciding that he will marry her to keep her safe.

The character of Christina I really did enjoy. She was actually probably one of the smartest heroines that Garwood wrote I think next to some others I will discuss in later reviews. I actually loved the prologue in this book (and most other readers would agree) on how Christina came to be raised and what caused her to be sent back to England eventually.

As I already said, Lyon kind of got on my nerves. There's a whole thing going on with what he "does for the government" that goes into more details in later books in the series. I think it never works for me when a character's wife is fridged like his was and the reasoning behind it too. It just made me roll my eyes a bit.

The other characters in this one were memorable, Aunt Patricia is a garbage person.

The writing though in this one reminds me why it wasn't my go to re-read over the years. It's just bad in places. And the flow was awful in a lot of spots. I never really read the first book in a series and went on this is filler, but this one really is when you it compare it to books #2-4 in the series. There's better flow and callbacks between those books/characters.

I also really didn't enjoy the ending. I really wish that we could have had some sort of epilogue that includes Christina seeing her other family or something. It just stops very abruptly. At least it read that way to me.

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

Series: A book that’s part of a series or, contains a series of essays, short stories, etc.; a book about a series of historical events.
This book is book #1 in the Crown's Spies series. show less

DNF. I really enjoyed the beginning, but then when the love story kicked in, I lost interest. I just found the plot and the characters silly, contrived and dated. I could tell this was a romance novel written in the 1980s. The hero is extra Alpha-y with an especially dated "all women are liars and I know this because of my experience with my ex-wife" type of mindset. The heroine is plucky, almost tiresomely so. She often mixes up her words, which leads to frequent misunderstandings in conversations with the hero. I'm pretty sure this was for comedic effect, but I found it gimmicky and annoying. We're also told that she is super talented with fighting and also very intelligent, but this is never evident in her actions. The side plot with show more the heroine's mother and father is also pretty unbelievable, tbh. It's just poorly written and executed.

So, yeah. I DNF'd this book after about 150 pages and skimmed to the end. I really wanted to like this book, but it's not my cup of tea, sadly. :( show less

2/27/13 - another re-read. This book gets better each time I read it.

11/10 - My sister-in-law borrowed this book and when she returned it I did a fast re-read. I just have one word: LOVE.

12/10 - I forget how much I enjoy Garwood's regency titles, especially The Lion's Lady.

More often than not it is Garwood's heroes who stand out for me, even though I tend to like her heroines. But Christina is the exception. I absolutely adore her and how unconventional she is. She was raised by Indians in the Black Hills of South Dakota, can use a knife better than many men, prefers to go barefoot and eats the leaves of bushes. She's wonderful.

Lyon is the perfect match for her. Though he starts out quite jaded and cynical, it isn't long before he show more realizes what a gem Christina is. I especially love that he totally "gets" her. She kept thinking he wanted only the "civilized" version of herself, but he proves time and again that he loves all of her..even her wild, savage side. Especially her wild, savage side. show less

I had this marked as read. But I honestly have no recollection of this book. At all. So reading it was like reading it for the first time.

I actually really enjoyed this. It was an "oldie" but a "goodie"

Christina was raised in America by a tribe of Native Americans. But she was then tutored and sent back to England with the purpose of figuring out the mystery of her mother's death. She meets and instantly falls for the warrior like Lyon.

Lyon, when we meet him, is helplessly watching his wife die as she struggles to give birth to his child. But he finds out that she had cheated on him and the baby wasn't his. So he's pretty jaded about love and romance. When he meets Christina, he's puzzled by her oddness. But he can't see himself show more marrying again. Until she proposes.

What follows is actually a pretty funny series of events where these two continue to fall for each other. There were parts where I actually laughed out loud.

This was a good start to the series and I can't wait to read. Or in my case, re-read apparently. show less