You did it! We figured this one out! It is a truth universally acknowledged (by me for certain) that the Bitchery pretty much knows everything, and really, it's true. Scroll down to see the solution for this HaBO - and many thanks!
Maeve is looking for a book – except instead of remembering the plot, she remembers a review that discussed the plot:
Anyway, I was really hoping you or one of the community could help me find a book I'm looking for. I remember reading a review of it, I originally thought I read it on the Eloisa James' Barnes and Noble column about a year ago. I emailed her and asked if she remembered it and she's fairly certain I read the review elsewhere. It has been really bugging me so I hope you can help! I remember the reviewer commenting that the hero (I'm fairly certain it was a historical novel) was distant, aloof, a lone wolf kinda guy, who married (unwillingly?) and the heroine because of her spunkiness and/or saintliness won him over. I remember the reviewer commenting that the scene at the end of the book where the hero is in the library/study and is thinking about his wife, who I think is pregnant. He's worrying about her and the birth or maybe even worrying about the mechanics of the birth? I think the reveiwer said it was sweet and showed the hero as caring. It's meant to mean that he's engaged with his feelings for the heroine. I'm sorry there is so little to go on, but it is really really bugging me.
I wrote back and asked if she remembered anything else, and this was her reply:
Thank you so much for getting back to me. I'm afraid that I've been thinking about it so much i dont embellish the memory. I distinctly remember the reviewer describing this scene, it stuck in my head and I thought to myself that I'd like to read it, then I thought I should write the name of it down, but I thought to myself nah sure I'll remember d'oh. So the scene is something like this the hero, who has been distant in the book but he's distant because he's been hurt before, is worrying about his wife. I distinctly remember that he was worrying about the size of the baby's head versus her lady bits. (As someone who hasn't had a child, I worry about the proportions of that too). I'm sorry that's really all I remember, I recall the reviewer commenting that the scene was particularly sweet and funny. I'm worried now that I might have imagined it, but that scene has really stuck in my head. Can you think of any books where the heroine is about to give birth? It would be at the end or near the end of the novel. Also it would have been published in the last year or so.
Do you recognize that review – or that book?
Is it Julia Quinn’s The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever? It’s a historical, and the hero is kind of distant and jerky to the heroine. He’s still getting over his wife’s betrayal – he loved her, but then she turned out to be a cheater, and, I think, died while going off to see her lover. This left him all dark and broody, different from the man the heroine fell in love with when she was a child. Even after the hero and heroine marry, he has a tendency to act like a cold jerk, not thawing completely until near the end, when he realizes he has this wonderful woman just before it seems like she’s about to die giving birth. It was published a few years ago, but I recently saw a “reduced list price” paperback version at Walmart, so maybe that made it seem like it was published in the last year or so?
Oh, and it looks like I’ve reviewed it and have a paragraph referring to the birth scene at the end, but I’d be amazed if it was my review that Maeve was thinking of – I can’t see anyone misremembering one of my reviews as something published on the Eloisa James’ Barnes and Noble column. For one thing, I tend to be holy-crap-wordy.
Yeah, Julia’s Miranda Cheever was my first thought as well 🙂
That birth scene—specifically worrying about the size of the baby’s head vs birth canal—is ringing a bell for me. Unfortunately, too faint a bell to bring a full title and/or author to mind.
*off to check if LG is right*
Sounds more like Miranda Neville’s *The Dangerous Viscount* than JQ.
It could be Miranda Neville’s “The dangerous Viscount”. Diana, the heroine, is pregnant at the end of the book, and gives birth in the sequel “The amorous education of Celia Seaton”. There’s a very funny scene where her husband Sebastian and her father are drunk while she’s giving birth, and Sebastian is going on about the tiny little hole vs the size of the baby’s head, worrying about how she’ll ever survive it.
There IS an Eloisa James novel (Fool For Love) where the hero worries about the heroine giving birth. She has a bum hip that doctors say threatens the pregnancy and the heroine. Surprised James didn’t mention that one to Maeve.
I immediately thought of Miranda Cheever also. And will say that it was a wonderful book.
Loretta Chase’s “Lord of Scoundrels”!!! 99.999% positive (I never know these – SO exciting!) (I need a life…)
It can’t be LoS, there’s no reference to Jessica even being pregnant until The Last Hellion. I don’t recall such a scene in The Dangerous Viscount, either.
The description is a bit too vague for me to identify the book, sorry.
Just a correction to my previous comment – there is a reference to Jessica probably being pregnant at the very end of LoS, but she’s not very far along at that point and it’s not something either she or Sebastian are worried about.
It’s sort of the opposite situation in LoS—Dain is afraid he’ll “break” Jessica if they have sex, and then he remembers that women have babies and feels stupid. Because even his shlong isn’t quite that big. 😉
That’s The Dangerous Viscount by Miranda Neville! Such a good book.
I think it’s Elizabeth Hoyt’s To Seduce a Sinner – but the epilogue is actually a short story, where Hoyt revisited Jasper & Melisande.
This isn’t exactly the same as Mary Balogh’s ‘The Secret Mistress,’ but it’s close. There’s a super-sweet scene at the end where the hero is having a panic attack while the heroine is in labor. No worrying about her ladybits, though. I think that’s a bit outside the pale for Balogh.
Could it be Lady Sophia’s Lover by Lisa Kleypas? The hero is worried about his wife because his first wife had actually died in childbirth due to her ladybits being too small.
I vaguely recall Love’s Charade by Jane Feather having a scene somewhat similar to that…
I’m throwing my lot in with the Miranda Cheever people. There are complications with the pregnancy and she doesn’t wake up for a while, prompting one of those “deathbed” declarations of love. I like that book though there’s a lot that’s wrong with it.
Hello Everyone,
Thank you all so much for your comments. Thanks to the comments here I found the book and the review. The book is Miranda Neville’s ‘The Amorous Education of Celia Seaton’ and the review was posted on Dear Author. I did a happy dance when I found the review again, it really had been bugging me. So thank you all again I really appreciate your help!
Maeve