Review of generic Regency romance Love is a Rogue by Lenora Bell, and meanderings about a book whose title I can't remember

 

When I read the back cover of Regency romance Love is a Rogue by Lenora Bell I thought it said that heroine Beatrice Bentley's passion was entomology, when it actually said etymology.  So for much of the first chapters I was waiting for Beatrice to run out to the gardens and dig up insects.  (The book does include a dress decorated with real butterflies, so I wasn't entirely disappointed.)   

In the end it didn't really make a difference.  Whether Beatrice loves bugs or words, she is a typical "quirky" Regency heroine who has a -- gasp -- interest outside of going to balls.  Also she suffers from a slight birth defect that makes her face droopy. 

Need I say more?  Along comes a man who is not appropriate to Beatrice's station but is hot and kind and likes that she likes big words and thinks that she is beautiful.    

The man is Ford Wright, a carpenter.  They bond over tearing out floorboards.

I guess this is kind of a spoiler (although it doesn't give away anything about the book's plot, except the predetermined happy ending), so be warned:

These are the last three paragraphs of the book:

 She loved him.  More than she'd ever thought it possible to love.

 Their love was strong and solid and true.

Built to weather storms.  Built to stand the test of time.  

At first reading I rolled my eyes at this generic language.  Is there any romance novel, Regency or otherwise, that could not end with these words?

On second reading I saw the metaphor: their love is like the houses that Ford builds, strong, solid, true, etc.  

But that metaphor not earned.  While some of the plot of the book involves carpentry, that's all it is -- plot.  And where is Beatrice's love of the study of words and their origins in this ending?  A few paragraphs earlier she calls Ford, "Malapert rapscallion.  Scurrilous scoundrel."  But that's conversation, not metaphor.  

Years ago I read a modern romance whose title I can't remember.  Sandcastles, maybe, or Castles in the Sand.  I'm not finding it on Amazon.  The central metaphor was that the heroine liked to build sandcastles and then watch the waves wash them away.  She bumps into an old boyfriend (I think) and makes up a story about her life, figuring they'll have a fling and never see each other again.  Of course the romance lasts, and the truth comes out.  The hero forgives her when he watches the waves wash away a sandcastle, and he understands that the sandcastles are supposed to be fun and are not built to last, but the beach itself is there forever.  The fling, the lies, were the sandcastle, but their love is the beach.  The fact that I remember that metaphor years later -- that's one that is built to last. 

Love is a Rogue has not earned its metaphor, leaving it a generic, fairly dull book. 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Review of West End Earl by Bethany Bennett, the gender-bending Regency romance that isn't

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW

These are the characters in Regency romance West End Earl by Bethany Bennett: 

Ophelia, a woman who lives as a man. 

Calvin, who knows Ophelia cross-dresses, and is in love with her.  

Emma, Calvin's sister, who marries Ophelia knowing that she is a woman.  

A random male servant who has a hidden talent for doing women's hair.

So far this sounds like a pretty great romp, right?  Maybe along the lines of the gender-fluid Regency romance, the The Perks of Loving a Wallflower, but a bit more light-hearted with a farcical Shakespearian wit?  

Alas, no.  This book bends so far backwards to make the reader understand that all of its main characters are one hundred percent not gay, not transgender, not in any way queer, no siree bob, that it's in danger of getting sciatica. 

Ophelia, the cross-dressing heroine, is a cisgendered and entirely heterosexual woman.  She does not yearn to be a man in any way.  At her most extreme, she prefers men's shoe because they are more practical for sustained walking.  Other than that, her deepest desire is to go back to wearing women's clothing.  She lusts only after men.  Her cross-dressing is strictly a matter of necessity.

Calvin, the hero in love with cross-dressing Ophelia, is a  cisgendered and entirely heterosexual man.  He never felt any attraction to Ophelia when he believed her to be a man.   When he learned that she was a woman, he desired her because he now noticed her womanly features.  There was no frisson added by Ophelia presenting as male.

Emma, Calvin's sister, who marries Ophelia knowing she is a cross-dressing woman, is a cisgendered and entirely heterosexual woman.   She is in no way attracted to Ophelia and Ophelia is in no way attracted to her.  They're friends, that's it.  The marriage is simply for convenience. 

As for the servant:  Okay, he's an open question.  When he learns that Ophelia is a cross-dressing woman he doesn't bat an eyelash. The origin of his uncanny skill as a woman's hairdresser -- a skill one would not think a butler would ordinarily develop -- is never explained.  What's his (her? their?) story?  We never find out.

On a very positive note, despite all foreshadowing to the contrary throughout this book, the climax does not involve a kidnapping.  

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Review of Regency romance Take Me by Lucy Monroe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wanted to like Regency romance Take Me by Lucy Monroe, I really did.  The book seems to have good intentions.  The heroine, Calantha, is a widow who was battered in her first marriage.  When she is introduced Monroe provides some insight into what it took for her to survive, how the marriage damaged her psyche, and how she moves forward in the shadow of her past.

Unfortunately the book does not do this topic justice.  Calantha's character arc consists of her learning to not mind when her love interest, Jared, treats her badly, scares her, believes that she might be a child murderer, refuses to impart important information to her because that would require them putting off having sex, and is generally a jerk -- but not as much of a jerk as her first, more physically abusive husband, so it's okay.

Calantha's virginity coming into her marriage with Jared also struck a wrong note.  I understand that it is practically a requirement that Regency romance heroines are virgins, but it made little sense against her back story.  We are told that her first husband refused to have sex with her as a method of destroying her self-esteem.  From a character-development point of view, it is certainly an easier journey for a woman to learn to enjoy sex if she was not previously sexually assaulted -- but I still could not suspend my disbelief here.

Finally, there is a kidnapping very early in this book.  If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that kidnappings in Regency romances always, always make me roll my eyes.  But since this one came so early, I thought perhaps it was just a way to tick off this plot point and move on.  Alas, no, the last third of the book is devoted to a different kidnapping.  

This is one to skip. 

 

Note from Jasmine Gold: As the name of this blog indicates, I write erotica. Check out my dark, dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames. Your darkest fantasies, with a phenomenal plot and characters you will come to think of as beloved friends. Available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited  and in paperback.  Or read my book of short stories about hot, consensual sex, The Mature Woman's Guide to Desire, available on Kindle and Kindle Unlimited.

Review of mostly delightful Regency Romance His Wicked Wish by Olivia Drake, and a holiday gift for my readers

 

I grabbed His Wicked Wish by Olivia Drake off of my to-be-read shelf because a knee injury forced me to work out at the gym instead of going for a run.  And that meant I needed to interrupt the modern romance I'm reading on my Kindle for a paperback I can leave around while I'm doing the weight machine circuit.

I could not put this book down.  I extended my time on the elliptical machine and then came home and finished the novel (which means I need a new book for when I return to the gym tomorrow).  

His Wicked Wish is chock full of delightful things:  It's 1) a Regency romance 2) about an actress who enters into a marriage of convenience 3) with a noble (an earl, maybe?  I can't remember) 4) who is nice to servants and 5) against all appearances she's actually a virgin and 6) she's actually the granddaughter of a duke and 6) they're both hot and 7) they fall in love.

Alas, this gooey goodness gets interrupted about 90 percent into the book when the heroine gets kidnapped.  I'm not putting a spoiler alert here because at this point is it a spoiler when the heroine gets kidnapped in a Regency romance?  Oh, yeah, and there's a plot point resolved by a near-fatal illness.  

I still give this book a solid B, but it's a shame it couldn't stick the landing.  

On another topic:

Today is Sunday, December 18, 2021, and it is the LAST DAY that you can get a free Kindle copy of my smutty, dark dystopian romance about naked sex slaves, Mindgames.   Everyone deserves at least one present at the holidays that they will love.  This is my gift to you.  

Review of modern romance How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole, and a holiday gift for you

 

When I reviewed Alyssa Cole's book How to Catch a Queen I complained that the heroine was way too good for the manchild hero.  How to Find a Princess,  Cole's next book in her Runaway Royals series, features love interests who are much better matched.  In fact, one of the most interesting features of this book is that Makeda and Beznaria are very similar to each other in their strengths, which are also their weaknesses.  They both love to help others -- to they extent that they both like to force their help on people who don't want it.  Cole could have gone farther in exploring what it was like for each of them to confront someone whose annoying traits are exactly the same as their own annoying traits.  

The issue of the similarity of the characters made the love story somewhat unbelievable to me. I subscribe to the rule that you tend to be put off by people who are most similar to you.  (I know I am.  If you're an ultra-organized over-achieving introvert who loves to write smut about naked sex slaves, sorry, we are probably not a match.) 

Cole did a great job with Makeda as an adult child of an alcoholic/mentally unstable mother, and exploring the reasons that she always needs to be in charge and be helpful.  It was a joy to see Beznaria being nice to her, and Makeda learning to accept someone being nice to her.  Beznaria is not as well developed a character, although I did like how her internal experience as a person with attention deficit disorder was described, and how having ADD was a strength not a weakness.

SPOILERS HERE, FOR HOW TO FIND A PRINCESS AND GAME OF THRONES:  

My main issue with How to Find a Princess is that the last three pages should have been twenty pages, at least.  I believe it ended with Makeda and Beznaria being cousins, but it wasn't entirely clear.  If so, ick, and will that lead to a Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryan Game of Thrones-like issue?  

One other thing about Cole as a writer: she's hilarious, and I would love to see her lean in to her comic genius.  My favorite line in the book: "Algernon Shropsbottomshireburrough, pronounced Smith, was both."  

A GIFT FOR MY READERS:

Today is Thursday, December 16, 2021.  For the next four days my smutty, dark dystopian novel about naked sex slaves, Mindgames, is free on Kindle.  If you love dark erotica that has a well-written plot and actual character development, this book is for you. 

RIP Anne Rice, the godmother of naked sex slave smut

The obituaries of Anne Rice uniformly remember her as the author of the Vampire novels.  The few that mention that she also wrote erotica do so only as an afterthought.   

But for me, Rice will always be the author who wrote unabashedly delightful novels about naked sex slaves.

 

Her Sleeping Beauty Trilogy, written under the pen name A.N. Roquelaire, was so hot that when I innocently picked up The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty in the Barnes & Noble where I spent most of my lunch breaks at the time (the early 1990's) and started thumbing through it, I literally dropped it on the floor. 

The trilogy reimagines Sleeping Beauty as a naked sex slave in a kingdom of naked sex slaves. It is slight of plot and characterization, but  oh so pretty.  Beauty is a sweet, innocent masochist who is turned on by humiliation, and by being spanked, and by sultry stories her friends tell her of being anally penetrated by a carrot.  Beauty stands for all of us. 

(Rice published a fourth book in the series, Beauty's Kingdom, in 2016.  It had none of the courage of the first three books, and is overall a plodding, politically correct read.) 

 

Rice also wrote a novel called Exit to Eden, under the pen name Anne Rampling.  A cover blurb on a recent edition of the book sums it up:  "They will explore their most forbidden desires, including love." 

At first glance Exit to Eden is similar to the Sleeping Beauty books. It is set on a sex island.  Some people volunteer to be naked slaves.  Other people pay to dominate them.  It has some scenes that could be set in Beauty's kingdom.  But despite that, it doesn't have much explicit sex in it.  It is less erotica and more love story, and a great one at that, in which two people who happen to be kinky learn to be their full selves through their love of the other.

(The book was made into an almost universally panned movie adaptation, which added Rosie O'Donnell and Dan Akroyd as undercover cops who infiltrate the sex island to chase a MacGuffin. My favorite part:  A hot slave keeps following Rosie O'Donnell around, begging her to use him.  When he asks her one too many times how he can fulfill her fantasies, she says in exasperation, "Go paint my house."  And he does!  He's actually a rich investment banker!  Now that's a love story.) 

The Beauty books and Exit to Eden were a huge inspiration for Mindgames, my own much darker novel about naked sex slaves.  Beauty showed me that it's possible to create a novel that expresses your deepest sexual fantasies, and Exit to Eden demonstrated that such a novel can be well-written and have a strong plot and deep character development.  For that I will always be grateful to Rice.

Rest in peace.

My review of chicklit book The Perfect Find by Tia Williams (with some self-promotion at the end)

 

A shallow description of The Perfect Find by Tia Williams makes it sound like a generic chicklit book.  Woman with a glamorous career in New York City falls for a hottie, issues ensue, she reevaluates her life choices, and comes out stronger and better.

But The Perfect Find is chicklit at the top of its game.  The romance in the book is between Jenna Jones, a woman in her late 30's whose biological clock is ticking like a timebomb, and Eric Combs, a man in his early 20's who needs to spend the next several years of his life focusing on making a career as a film director.  Usually I would hate a story like that, because it's obvious that there's no way it can, or should, work out between the two of them.  But I really enjoyed how Williams did not cheat with her characters or cut corners with the conflict.  Jenna and Eric are at different stages in life, and those stages are incompatible with each other.  Rather than being annoyed by this, I found myself genuinely curious throughout the book how they would make it work.  Let's just say the ending didn't cheat either.  

I did have my usual nitpicks.  The villain of the story is Eric's mother -- who he, a grown man, lives with, and lives off of in significant ways, all the while believing that she is evil.  That was a character flaw that was never addressed.  He should have gotten a cheap apartment with roommates like every other ambitious, broke young person who can't stand their mother instead of using her and complaining about her. 

And--GIANT SPOILER HERE:

 

 

 

Jenna should not have had and raised Eric's child without telling him.  It's a testament to Williams' talent as a writer that when I read this part of the story my first reaction wasn't complete disgust.  Williams had set up these characters and their situations so well that it just seemed like the right thing to do.  But my second reaction, when I stepped back from the book, was absolute dismay.  That kind of behavior is just not okay, even if you are convinced that you know what is right for the father of your child -- even if you actually know what is right for him.   Even if the father of your child agrees with you when he learns the truth.  Just don't do it.

And now onto something completely different:  I'm not sure if I can call it shameless self-promotion if I'm giving away my books for free.  Today is Sunday, December 5, 2021.  It's the last day that you can get a free kindle copy of my smutty short story, My First Submissive Adventure.  The blurb:  

Ginny is newly divorced and anxious to explore her submissive side. But does Tom have what it takes to get inside her defenses?

Consider this my gift to you.  If you like it, and you want to return the favor, please consider telling your friends about it.  Or writing a review.  Or take a look at my new book, The Mature Woman's Guild to Desire, which includes My First Submissive Adventure and three other smutty short stories.  Or at Mindgames, my dark dystopian novel about naked sex slaves.