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I met the lovely and delightful Meredith Duran, whose debut novel THE DUKE OF SHADOWS won the gather.com contest (it is teh awesome!), in the hotel bar and asked her to share what six books she would bring if stranded on a desert island. Her next two books come out back to back next summer from pocket. Why do we have to wait so long?

Title: Slightly Dangerous
Author: Mary Balogh
Series: The Bedwyns
Publication Info: Dell Historical Romance, March 2005
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 (5 hearts!)

I do not remember who recommended Slightly Dangerous, but I should like to kiss her. This book filled my heart to bursting. I am all aglow with warm fuzzies. This is why I read romance novels, and in particular Regency romance novels. In Slightly Dangerous, Ms. Balogh has created two remarkable characters whose biggest weaknesses are also their biggest strengths. They fight their unreasonable and nonsensical attraction, only to have love transform their lives into something better than they ever hoped they could be. I have fallen deliciously in love with both the hero and the heroine. I want to date Wulfric and be best friends with Christine. I want to be a member of the Bedwyn family, and plan to rush out and buy all their stories. Gotta love sibling sequels. Though Slightly Dangerous is the last book of the series, it stands perfectly fine alone. It is my first read of Ms. Balogh’s, and again I would like to profusely thank whomever made the introduction.

The plot reads like a standard Regency, but the delivery is magical.

Christine Derrick is a widow living happily in genteel poverty with her spinster sister and mother. She is warm, outgoing and gregarious. She truly loves people. Wulfric Bedwyn, the Duke of Bewcastle, is her polar opposite. He is obscenely rich and terribly proper, with the personableness of a glacier. At a tedious country house party one woman refuses to cow to his icy stare. Her behavior is outrageous, climbing trees and laughing out loud and doing everything civilized persons ought not to do. But, of course, he finds himself attracted to her, despite despising her. Christine is likewise not enamored of the top-lofty Duke. When he asks her to be his mistress she is outraged. They submit to their attraction, but the encounter does nothing to end the damnable feelings. Nothing lasting can come of it, as she is inferior for the position of Duchess and he lacks a shred of warmth or kindness. Christine vows never to marry again after her first marriage slowly killed her girlhood dreams of happily-ever-after. They run into each other again and again, until finally the Duke makes his move. He invites Christine and her extended family-in-law to his country estate with all his siblings and their offspring for the holiday in an attempt to show her he has a heart. Lovely family moments and hi-jinx ensue.

Ms. Balogh weaves a beautiful love story with an lovely theme (p362):

“At last,” he said. “I would not believe in our happily-ever-after until now.”

“Oh, not happily-ever-after, Wulfric,” she said. “That is such a static thing. I don’t want happily-ever-after. I want happiness and life and quarreling and making up and adventure and-”

If you like an uplifting story of luv, true luv, this is the book for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, after many hours of fruitless searching I have found the out-of-print classic that is a must-read for any who would call herself a romance novel aficionado. The Windflower by Laura London (AKA Tom and Sharon Curtis) is now in my hot little paws. (And I bought it for a buck fifty!) I confess I am a Windflower virgin. So many people have named it the Best Romance Ever Written, including authors Teresa Medieros and Joanna Bourne and fellow DIK blogger MaryKate. All About Romance wrote “From its very first sentence, The Windflower seduces the senses with lush, lyrical, evocative prose. It is a brilliantly-plotted work full of wonderful details, subtle eroticism, clever humor, and heart-wrenching emotion, yet it is the characters that really capture the reader.”

How do I approach a book that has so many rabid fans? It will be like criticizing Shakespeare. It’s a bodice ripper. How can this live up to such lofty expectations? But soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is a ravishing pirate hero who will deliver punishing kisses upon the innocent naive heroine! What joy! What rapture!

Seriously though, I will brave these turgid waters and share with you the pleasure-full details sometime soonish. Until then, reacquaint yourself with the back copy of this illustrious tome (it’s even better if you read it out-loud):

She longed for a pirate’s kisses, for a golden rogue’s caress…

Every lady of breeding knows: no one has a good time on a pirate ship. No one, that is, but the pirates. Yet there she was, Marry Wilding- kidnapped in error, taken from a ship bound from New York to England, spirited away in a barrel and swept aboard the infamous Black Joke…. There she was, trembling with pleasure in the arms of her achingly handsome, sensationally sensual, golden-haired captor – Devon. From the storm-tossed Atlantic to the languid waters of the Gulf Stream, from a smuggler’s den to a guilded mansion, Merry struggled to escape… to escape the prison of her own reckless passions, the bondage of sweet, bold desire….

Title: The Spymaster’s Lady
Author: Joanna Bourne
Publication Info: Penguin Group, January 2008
Genre: Historical Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

Wow. Just…wow. Next time someone asks “What is good writing?” I have my answer: this book. Not good writing. Brilliant writing. Now that I’ve spent many months trying to write I can really appreciate good writing when I see it. Writing is hard. Good writing is really hard. Brilliant writing? A gift from the gods.

Let me chose a paragraph to illustrate:

The noisy town of Dover stretched above her with its stone houses stacked one upon the other up the hill and the castle above everything. Around her, gray green water washed the pilings, splashing tiny explosions of light, spinning bubbles of silver and snow white. In baskets of fish, the scales shone in iridescent ripples. (172-173)

Brilliant imagery. The heroine is French and I can hear her thinking in French, with cadences and word order in the French way. When the characters switch into German it is the same – though the words are technically English the language use is not. Truly impressive mastery of linguistics. The characters are Brilliant too – complex, detailed. They suck you in and make you fall in love with them. Bourne engages all your senses: your tastes, smells, sights, sounds, touches… your heart.

See how she describes Annique’s spy roleplaying like a garment, repeating the imagery in the next paragraph. It’s awesome.

She took another deep breath and let the role close around her like a familiar garment…. Hid beneath layer and layer of soft foolish Harlot, she waited. (p14)

Plot:
Annique Villiers is a master spy during the reign of Napoleon, trained to lie at her mother’s knee and raised on the battlefields of France. She is one hell of an awesome heroine. When she finds herself in a French prison with two English spies, she concocts an escape and frees her enemies too, tossing her right out of the frying pan and into the fire. Abandoned by her people, injured, alone, Annique must outwit those who hunt her and try to escape the most perilous clutches she has found herself in yet – those of British spymaster Robert Grey.

I dare not give you a full summary for fear of ruining the plot twists. Read the Smart B*tch review or the Dear Author review for more in depth analysis. All I can do is drool. I adore this book. It is going on my list of all-time awesomeness. I CANNOT WAIT FOR BOURNE’S NEXT OFFERING!!!! (My Lord and Spymaster to-be-released July 2008)