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Wilde in Love
Wilde in Love by Eloisa James is $2.99! This is the first book in The Wildes of Lindow Castle and it came out at the end of October. Readers loved the characters and the blend of humor in the romance. However, some readers on Goodreads admitted that they gave the book the dreaded DNF (did not finish) grade.
Lord Alaric Wilde, son of the Duke of Lindow, is the most celebrated man in England, revered for his dangerous adventures and rakish good looks. Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father’s castle, but just as he grasps that he’s not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty, Miss Willa Ffynche.
Willa presents the façade of a serene young lady to the world. Her love of books and bawdy jokes is purely for the delight of her intimate friends. She wants nothing to do with a man whose private life is splashed over every newspaper.
Alaric has never met a woman he wanted for his own . . . until he meets Willa. He’s never lost a battle.
But a spirited woman like Willa isn’t going to make it easy. . . .
The first book in Eloisa James’s dazzling new series set in the Georgian period glows with her trademark wit and sexy charm—and introduces a large, eccentric family. Readers will love the Wildes of Lindow Castle!
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Because You’re Mine
Because You’re Mine by K. Langston is 99c! This is the first book in the MINE series and seems to have some opposites attract elements. Reviewers warn that there’s definitely some insta-love going on, but many really loved the hero, Holden. It has a 3.7-star rating on Gooderads.
Madison Waters knew exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She was already working for one of the most prestigious law firms in Boston as a research assistant, and in a few short months, she would finally graduate from Harvard and collect her law degree. Everything she had worked so hard for was well within her reach.
But when Madison had to take an unexpected trip back home, she was blindsided by the one thing she never planned on.
Desperate to escape his wicked past, Holden Brooks moved to Madison’s hometown five years ago. It’s was a struggle at first, but he eventually overcame the demons that almost destroyed him back in Texas. Holden was in a good place in his life and love was the last thing on his mind.
Everything changes the moment these two paths collide and they soon find out, fate has a plan of its own.
You never know when or where love will come along and change everything.
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Furiously Happy
RECOMMENDED: Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson is $2.99! Elyse loved this book and how it helped her deal with chronic pain. She gave it an A:
Furiously Happy is a rare book, a combination of ridiculous humor and poignant reflection. I think anyone who has suffered from a stigmatized illness will identify with Lawson’s honest, sometimes heartbreaking, description of her own pain. It’s still an uplifting book though, and that’s important. Lawson believes in celebrating small victories and quiet bravery. I get that. Sometimes you’re proud because hey, you got out of bed and showered today but you can’t post that on Facebook because other people don’t get it (and you’ll get shitty comments “Wow, I trained for my half marathon and worked 12 hours.” NOBODY CARES, GARY).
For fans of David Sedaris, Tina Fey, and Mindy Kaling-the new book from Jenny Lawson, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Let’s Pretend This Never Happened…
In Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. In her new book,Furiously Happy, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.
According to Jenny: “Some people might think that being ‘furiously happy’ is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he’s never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos.”
“Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you’d never guess because we’ve learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, ‘We’re all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.’ Except go back and cross out the word ‘hiding.'”
Jenny’s first book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness.Furiously Happy is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it’s about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways-and who doesn’t need a bit more of that?
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The Highwayman
RECOMMENDED: The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne is $3.99! Redheadedgirl grabbed this at RT 2015 when it was held in Dallas. She reviewed it and gave it an A-:
What I liked best about this book was the liberal use of crazysauce. It’s a melodramatic tale of a broken man healed by the love of a good woman, and the good woman that’s strong enough to love this man and bring him back into the world. When he proposed the marriage idea, she’s like “Fine, but I want a baby so that’s my condition,” and he’s like, “but I don’t touch people so I didn’t really think this through,” “fine, then I’ll take a lover.” “I. WILL. KILL. HIM….”
“That’s not very solution-oriented.” (Actual quote!)
They’re rebels, scoundrels, and blackguards-dark, dashing men on the wrong side of the law. But for the women who love them, a hint of danger only makes the heart beat faster, in the stunning debut historical romance The Highwayman by Kerrigan Byrne.
STEALING BEAUTYDorian Blackwell, the Blackheart of Ben More, is a ruthless villain. Scarred and hard-hearted, Dorian is one of Victorian London’s wealthiest, most influential men who will stop at nothing to wreak vengeance on those who’ve wronged him…and will fight to the death to seize what he wants. The lovely, still innocent widow Farah Leigh Mackenzie is no exception-and soon Dorian whisks the beautiful lass away to his sanctuary in the wild Highlands…
COURTING DESIRE
But Farah is no one’s puppet. She possesses a powerful secret-one that threatens her very life. When being held captive by Dorian proves to be the only way to keep Farah safe from those who would see her dead, Dorian makes Farah a scandalous proposition: marry him for protection in exchange for using her secret to help him exact revenge on his enemies. But what the Blackheart of Ben More never could have imagined is that Farah has terms of her own, igniting a tempestuous desire that consumes them both. Could it be that the woman he captured is the only one who can touch the black heart he’d long thought dead?
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Was so excited for the Kerrigan Byrne series. Picked up the second book in series The Hunter on sale, and it was a total DNF. I love dark tormented heroes but that one seemed pretty irredeemable, which thus made the heroine seem To Dumb to Live since she kept hanging out with him.
Does anyone know if this first book is better?
@ Liz – I hated The Highwayman and DNF’d it. From what I recall, if you hated The Hunter, you’ll not like this much either. (I think I DNF’d that one too – and then tried to read The Highwayman because I forgot about The Hunter)
@Liz: I had to check the copyright date when I was reading The Highwayman because it was pure Eighties. If you’re nostalgic for everything that entails, the homage is a good thing; if you feel that era had its time in the sun and are glad it’s behind us, skip it like a flat rock across a frigid loch, as far as it will go, and let it sink into the murky depths. It wasn’t a DNF for me, but I won’t read another.
Kinda liked these until I got to Scott beds his wife think it was called. Hard did not finish.
Chiming in on The Highwayman – also a DNF for me because reality is depressing enough and this story is just too dark to slog through to get to a HEA. I made it roughly halfway through and decided too many books and not enough time and moved on.
LOVE Furiously Happy. You’ll find yourself laughing and will concern everyone around you, but it’s worth it.
I enjoyed the Highwayman, because it’s a bit of a throwback. Full of crazysauce, so you have to be in the right mindset for it. YMMV
I really thought I wouldn’t like The Highwayman, but I really liked it. I did like the second book as well, though and I agree with Katie Lynn that you have to be in the right mindset for it. I would say the first is better, but I’m not sure you’d like it if you didn’t like the second one.
DNF Wilde in Love. I have LOVED a lot of previous Eloisa James, but this feel severely unrooted. The language was all very modern, and one of the main story lines was all around celebrity culture, essentially, but not in a “Oh, we’re Victorian and we swoon about new Dickens stories” but in a way where I actually expected someone to start tweeting about the Kardashians. I like my historicals to feel pretty grounded in the time period where they’re supposedly taking place, and that aspect kept pulling me out of the storyline.
It didn’t help that there were about a million side things happening (set up for future books, I assume) and a lot of what felt like it was SUPPOSED to be snappy, quippy dialogue, but ended up being a kind of irritating distraction and, again, contributed to the very modern feel.
I also didn’t really like either the hero or heroine – I never got a handle on either of them, and no defining characteristics other than “annoying” stood out for either of them. Gave up about 1/3 of the way through, which is pretty rare for me.
Honestly, super disappointed that I’d pre-ordered and been excited about it :/ If you love Eloisa James, I’d download the sample chapter on Amazon and see if you can deal with the writing in this one. The first chapter is pretty representative.
Susanna, are you me? Wilde in love was a DNF for me too, and you have articulated very clearly the reasons why. I had been looking forward to it so much but I just could not come to grips with the writing. I also abandoned it around a third of the way through. I think this is the first Eloisa James I have DNF’d. Usually even if I don’t like the characters much I enjoy the writing and the wit, but not here.
I finished Wilde in Love, but ONLY because of Sweetpea. Seriously, I finished a book I found intensely irritating because of the heroine’s pet. I couldn’t stand Willa or Alaric OR their friends/family, I thought the plot was terrible, but I liked Sweetpea a lot. 🙂
But I may not like Eloisa James. I just realized today that the DNF I’d picked up at the used bookstore (A Duke of Her Own) was from her, and that was basically a “DNF, wanted to set on fire.”
I loved Wilde in Love! After not liking some of Eloisa James’s fairytale based series and her other most recent release, this one I liked a lot more. But clearly YMMV with that book.
More disappointed expectations. I thought Wilde in Love might be about Oscar.
Farah? Does she join an all female crimefighting team?
Just wanted to say that I love how divergent these opinions are. Hate it, love it. Yes, you can find your people here.
Clearly a minority opinion -but I hated the Highwayman and thought it was silly, but loved the Hunter. I thought all the characters in The Hunter, right down to the supporting ones were well drawn and fantastic.
I’d read a book about the heroine’s Irish beautician and her Creole husband and their 19th century interracial marriage any day of the week. The short scene with them alone just captivated me and I loved the part with the 19th century beauty rituals. Beauty was a big business even back then and I had just read a non-fiction book about it around that time so I’d love to see an author write a main heroine with that profession.
I really enjoyed the intensity of feelings in the novel and I thought the heroine was very charming and her plot moppet son worked for me as well. I found him adorable and not cloying.
Susanna, you have articulated why I have not enjoyed a lot of Eloise James’s books in a long time. I feel I ought to like them, but all the things you mentioned keep my engagement at a distance. I haven’t picked up a new James in a long time.
It’s really comforting to read some of these comments on Eloisa James’s latest. I started reading Eloisa James when her books started popping up on SBTB along with Sarah MacLean, Julia Quinn & co. I stopped reading them a couple of years later at about the same time and for the same reasons. (Still hanging in there with Tessa Dare and still mostly love Courtney Milan and Elizabeth Hoyt)
I love a historical novel that connects to the present by demonstrating that certain behaviors and emotions are fundamental to human nature. We love Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte because Emma and Elizabeth and Jane are our sisters in spirit. I can deal with one or two characters who are “ahead” of their time; however, 21st century personalities and dialog supported by a mess of clever but shallow cultural references just doesn’t do it for me. Imposing current societal mores, language, and beliefs on the 19th century just aggravates me. Wilde didn’t even make it to my TBR. I am planning to buy the hell out of Furiously Happy though.
No one has commented on “Because You’re
Mine”. The cover copy implies she gives up law school upon returning to her home town and meeting the hero. Please tell me this isn’t so, not in 2017.
@Susan/DC
Book was published in 2013. Also it’s set in the American south. So somehow might be showing off their new futuristic Zune.