Review: MY LADY QUICKSILVER by Bec McMaster

Full of vampires, werewolves and steampunk in an alternate Victorian England, Bec McMaster’s My Lady Quicksilver serves up another of her dark, fast-paced, exciting adventure romances wrapped around a wrenching emotional tale of two wounded people.

In a world where the Blueblood vampires rule and everyone else submits, the revolutionary leader Mercury fights for the Humans.

Blueblood Sir Jasper Lynch, head of the dreaded police force, the Nighthawks, must find Mercury within three weeks--or die. Mercury wants to find her missing brother. Lynch might have the information, so she answers his advertisement for a secretary. Lynch doesn’t know his secretary is Mercury. Mercury doesn’t know what Lynch will do for those he cares about. What they both find is something neither of them expected or wanted--love.

I liked this book immensely, and I’m not a big fan of paranormal, steampunk, alternative worlds, tortured heroes/heroines, dark romance or any of the tropes here except the history and adventure. But Ms. McMaster has spun all these shopworn elements into something new, appealing and gripping.

Instead of having her heroes’ paranormal abilities confer all kinds of advantages (boring!), their powers are more curse than blessing. Lynch, for all his vampire strengths, is an outcast from the ruling elite.

I especially dislike tortured heroes. Most are whiners who expect the heroine to baby them, and like a fool, she does. Not here. Although Lynch is tortured (and he has reason), he doesn’t wallow in his misery, but makes something of himself. Mercury, too, has suffered at the hands of the Bluebloods and done things she isn’t proud of, but that doesn’t stop her from carrying on the work of her dead husband, the previous leader of the Humanists.

I love the non-traditional Mercury, my favorite type of heroine. Women who take on a man’s world and win are the heroines I love, and there are way too few of them in romance. Go, Mercury!

My Lady Quicksilver also has plenty of the action and adventure I like, with Mercury doing her share. And at the core is an emotional story of two damaged people finding each other in the midst of chaos.

This book works on many levels, from romance, to action-adventure, to emotion. If you like romances with more than just the romance, try My Lady Quicksilver.

Although you can read this book by itself, My Lady Quicksilver is third in the series after Kiss of Steel and Heart of Iron. But if you like this one, you’ll like the others. And if you’re like me, you hate to come in on the middle.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: JUST ONE SEASON IN LONDON by Leigh Michaels

Charming characters, sparkling conversation and exuberant humor abound in Leigh Michaels's Regency historical, Just One Season in London, an exhilarating story of love found while trying to make others happy.

Young Viscount Ryecroft has no money. How can he keep up his estate, give his little sister, Sophie, a London Season so she can find a mate she wants, and also provide for his widowed mother, Miranda? He has to get them all to London for the Season. He will do anything he has to, including wedding an heiress for her money. Unbeknownst to him, Sophie and Miranda each set into motion their own plans to sacrifice themselves for the other two's welfare.

Just One Season in London is exactly the kind of book I like. With not one, but three of my favorite type of hero, the decent man, and heroines to match them.

In her previous book, The Mistress' House, Ms. Michaels wrote three separate but related novellas. Here, she has interwoven the three tales. In this era of straight-line stories, Just One Season in London is unusual in using multiple heroes and heroines, all of whose stories are of equal importance. In Ms. Michaels's deft hands, this means three times the fun. I like the way she intertwines scenes, showing each first from one main character's perspective, and then another's and another's. She keeps us in suspense until the final triple HEA.

I loved this book. In a world where everyone is out for him-or-herself, how refreshing to find characters so willing to sacrifice themselves for others.

There's probably a moral here about how you can make yourself happy when you make others happy, but we'll leave any possible preaching aside. Go and read Just One Season in London and have a good time.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: THE MISTRESS' HOUSE

When the Earl of Hawthorne buys a second London townhouse whose garden connects with his own, he has no idea his purchase will become a trysting place. In a trio of connected tales in Leigh Michaels's delicious The Mistress' House, three noble cousins find their matches in their mistresses.

First is the Earl of Hawthorne himself. Thorne meets the widowed Anne, who wants the not-as-rakish-as-he-appears earl to ruin her so she won't have to marry again. Second is Richard, the Earl of Colford, whom mill-owner's daughter Felicty shocks when she demands he stand in for his older brother, the previous earl, who betrayed her. And lastly, virginal miss Georgiana and returning soldier Julian, both fleeing arranged marriages, find each other.

I liked Richard's and Felicity's tale the best. This touching story of the wronged cit's daughter and the former spare, who must yet again clean up one of his brother's messes, catches at our heartstrings as their devil's bargain blossoms into love. A tale to remember and savor.

With deft storytelling, abundant humor (laugh at the hilarious asides from Julian's body, which pants "Yes, yes, yes!" when the vivacious Georgiana asks Julian to seduce her, even as his mind shouts "No, no, no!"), and tenderness in all the right places, The Mistress' House will remain with you for a long time to come.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: A PERFECT BRIDE FOR MR. DARCY by Mary Lydon Simonsen

We read Price and Prejudice and sigh in happiness at this enduring tale of a romance that was always fated to be.

Or was it?

No seemingly random events drive the action in A Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy, Mary Lydon Simonsen's retelling of Pride and Prejudice. Everything is arranged by none other than that unlikeliest of characters, the little-seen Anne De Bourgh.

Anne may be sickly, but her frail body houses a rapier-sharp mind. The story begins as Darcy confesses to Anne his monumentally bungled marriage proposal to Elizabeth. With the skill of a master strategist, Anne, along with some help from Darcy's sister, Georgiana, orchestrates the events that at last being them together.

In A Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy, Ms. Simonsen writes Pride and Prejudice as Jane Austen would have if she were alive today. She fleshes out the supporting characters, giving their motivations in their own words, as well as providing rationales for some of the coincidences in the original. Did the whim of the gods bring Darcy and Elizabeth together at Pemberley? Nothing of the sort. Anne directs the action, never leaving us in doubt that our characters find their happy endings not because of the mercy of the universe, but because of her deliberate, watchful care.

With a fast-reading, engaging style, along with a touch of humor--Darcy is so excited about Elizabeth that he must now wear trousers instead of breeches--A Perfect Bride for Mr. Darcy brings a new and enjoyable immediacy to Jane Austen's most popular novel.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks.