Title: Lord Perfect
Author: Loretta Chase
Publication Info: Penguin Group, March 2006
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3 <3

Short, spirited and well-written, Lord Perfect is a must read for any Regency Romance Lover. Indeed, it has been recommended by many readers over at Smart Bitches as a funny, super-absorbing, HEA-packed love story. I found the story, my first by Ms. Chase, to be delightful and I fully intend to read the rest of her repertoire in the coming months.

Benedict Carsington, Viscount Rathbourne, is known to the Ton as Lord Perfect for his impeccable self-conduct and for elevating the haughty aristocrat to an art form. Always the responsible one, he has taken over watch of his young nephew Peregrine. Bathsheba Wingate is a social outcast despite her blueblood and general responsibleness, simply for being related to the crooked branch of the DeLucey family. Her daughter Olivia inherited her relatives’ high spirited and iniquitous methods, and she hatches an Idea to run away to find the legendary family treasure, with Peregrine in tow. Hilarity ensues. Benedict and Bathsheba are forced together to find the missing children, despite their need to stay away from each other to fight the flames of passion that threaten to erupt.

Beneath his icy exterior, Benedict turns out to be a dashing hero and an excellent dad for Oliva. Bathsheba makes the typical romance heroine’s attempt to set Benedict free so that he doesn’t ruin his life by falling madly in love with her. He. in turn, makes the typical hero response of ignoring her well-meaning rebuttals and embracing the wuv, true wuv. The character that I love most in this book is Olivia. She’s charming, clever, and devious. My heart was all a-flutter at the deliciousness of the HEA. I recommend this book to all!

Title: Angel Rogue
Author: Mary Jo Putney
Series: Fallen Angels Series
Publication Info: Penguin Group, reissue November 2006
Genre: Regency Romance
Rating: <3 <3 <3

A delightful Regency adventure! I strongly recommend this book to Regency Romance Lovers, though I have two reservations that lead me to give it a rating of three hearts instead of four. Still, I have to like a book a lot to blog about it at all. This is my first book by Ms. Putney, and of course not the first in the Fallen Angels Series, so sue me. Reading it out of order was fine.

Lord Robert Andreville, known to his friends as Robin, is a charming, cheerful, magic-trick weilding, steal-your-heart hero whose happy-go-lucky air hides a wellspring of guilt and torment over his spy past. Maxima Collins, known to her friends as Maxie, is the daughter of the errant second son of an English Viscount and a Mohawk mother. She travels to England with her father to meet her unwelcoming English country cousins, and her father dies unexpectedly during a trip to London. Overhearing a conversation that suggests her father’s death wasn’t natural, she decides to run away, dressed as a boy, and walk to london. She literally trips over Robin as he is sleeping in the woods on his brother’s estate, and he appoints himself guardian in her quest. During their trek they outwit highway robbers, escape hired thugs, and get into brilliantly endearing capers. Maxima’s aunt and Robin’s brother search the countryside for the pair and end up falling in love in a very sweet secondary romance.

Things I love about the book: Robin. Ooo yum! Daring, honorable, funny, darling man! And the adventure crossing the country is great. The secondary romance in nice too.

Things that could have been better: Maxie uses stereotypical “listen to the wind” Native American magic to heal Robin’s soul. Cliche alert! The story lines are wrapped up blindingly fast and tight at the end of the book. They should have been more gently and naturally brought to conclusion.

I intend to read many more books by Ms. Putney, especially the rest of the Fallen Angels books so that I can get more Robin-goodness.

I thought about writing the above title with some different spelling. It would be appropriate, given today’s book, but I’ll spare you all. Aren’t I considerate? I can’t even write that without blushing. Today’s book, Wicked by Susan Johnson, I picked up thinking it would be a nice, fluffy, happily-ever-after regency that I would forget the details of as soon as I finished it, just like all the others. The back of the book read like any other Regency Romance – Earl of Rochefort, libertine, and Serena Blythe, innocent, meet in unusual circumstances, have scandalous and life-threatening adventures, and steal each other’s heart. It wasn’t the least bit fluffy. It was graphic, explicit, sexy. I’ve never blushed so much in my life, especially reading a book. Susan Johnson is a word artist, painting vivid pictures with each masterful sentence. She captures history with equal finesse, going so far as to include endnotes on historical details. I would strongly recommend any romance author to read this book and take notes on how to write passionate scenes without being vulgar. This is the kind of book that makes me think I should settle for being a career reader, for I could never attain Susan’s deft verbosity.

That said, I have complaints about it’s suitability as a Romance novel. The happily-ever-after ending was rushed and patently unbelievable. The Earl of Rochefort is the embodiment of an unrepentant rake, and he swears fidelity way-too-easily at the end of the book. Serena accepts his oath because she wants to believe it, but I sincerely doubt his ability to keep it. It was the first romance novel I’ve ever read where the hero is unfaithful through the book. Usually the rake (the hero is always a rake) gives up all other women upon meeting the heroine. The Earl did not, even sleeping with a maid right before deciding to follow Serena and propose to her. How romantic. Not. He needs to have a moment of epiphany where he realizes all his mistakes and how he has treated the heroine awfully and feels repentant in order for his transformation at the end to be in any way believable. He doesn’t. It isn’t.

Second complaint: some of his behavior is remarkably close to rape. In the first place he gets Serena drunk before he sleeps with her, and toward the end of the book he simply sleeps with her despite her verbal “no”. So what if she “wants” it. No means no. Candy and Sarah have some interesting posts on Alpha Heroes when they cross the line, but unfortunately I have to disagree with Sarah. How are we to ameliorate the statistic that 1-in-4 women in this country is raped sometime during her lifetime if we (as mostly women writers and readers) help create a culture where the line between force/coercion and consent is blurred? This isn’t unique to this book and really deserves a separate post, which I’ll get to eventually.

End of story, I enjoyed the book, learned a lot about writing and what it could be, but wouldn’t recommend it to just anybody – it should come with an adult-only warning sticker. <3 <3 <3 <3