Beyond the Sunrise
Beyond the Sunrise by Mary Balogh is $3.99! This is a second chance historical romance with class differences. Readers liked the setting of Spain and Portugal. However, many really seemed to dislike the heroine and her actions. This is also a new Balogh that was published last year. Any Balogh fans care to weigh in?
“I will love you all my life and even beyond that.”
Even at fifteen, Jeanne, the privileged daughter of a royalist émigré, knew what she liked: Englishman Robert Blake, bastard son of a marquess. Yet his questionable birth rendered him forbidden. Forced to part, they were still young enough to believe in tomorrow. But as time passed, that brief ephemeral flirtation at Haddington Hall faded into memory.
Eleven years later in Portugal, during the Peninsular Wars, they meet again, both of them spies, and destined to be working on opposing sides. He is now a captain with the British army. She is the widowed Marquesa das Minas–sometimes going by the name Joana da Fonte. However for only one of them does the flicker of recognition still burn.
Amid the fury of war and in the shadow of secrets, passion flares once again. But for Joana and Robert, each entrusted to a dangerous mission that demands deception, falling in love could be the most dangerous risk of all.
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Loving a Lost Lord by Mary Jo Putney is FREE right now. This is the first book in the Lost Lords series, and it has a 3.6-star average on GoodReads. It also has plenty of historical catnip, too. Shipwrecks! Groups of male friends with a Special Group Name who are all sequel bait! Plus amnesia! If you want to continue the rest of the series, each book is on sale for $3.99! Have you read this book?
In the first of a dazzling series, Mary Jo Putney introduces the Lost Lords—maverick childhood friends with a flair for defying convention. Each is about to discover the woman who is his perfect match—but perfection doesn’t come easily, even for the noble Duke of Ashton…
Battered by the sea, Adam remembers nothing of his past, his ducal rank, nor the shipwreck that almost claimed his life. However, he’s delighted to hear that the golden-haired vision tending his wounds is his wife. Mariah’s name and face may be familiar, but her touch, her warmth, feel deliciously right.
When Mariah Clarke prayed for a way to deter a bullying suitor, she didn’t imagine she’d find the answer washed ashore on a desolate beach. Convincing Adam that he is her husband is surprisingly easy. Resisting the temptation to act his wife, in every way, will prove anything but. And now a passion begun in fantasy has become dangerously real—and completely irresistible.
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Secrets in Scarlet by Erica Monroe is $2.99! This historical romance has a mystery at the heart of the plot and a heroine hiding her identity. Readers enjoyed the suspense aspects and say it can be read as a standalone, despite being the second book in a series. However, some felt the writing was a little uneven. It has a 4.1-star rating on Goodreads.
When a girl is murdered at a factory in one of London’s rookeries, Sergeant Thaddeus Knight of the Metropolitan Police comes in to investigate. But it’s not just the factory owners that Thaddeus wants information on—the devilishly intriguing Poppy O’Reilly is a puzzle he’d like nothing more than to solve.
Protecting her young daughter is the most important thing to Poppy, and Thaddeus threatens the false identity she’s carefully constructed. The last thing she should do is allow Thaddeus close to her family, yet she can’t stay away from him. With danger around the corner, will the secrets of a scarlet woman lead to their undoing?
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The Clockwork Dagger by Beth Cato is $1.99! This is a steampunk novel with romantic elements. The second book in the series is on sale for $2.99! Readers love Cato’s writing, but felt the characterization was rather exaggerated and didn’t feel real. It has a 3.6-star rating on Goodreads.
Full of magic, mystery, and romance, an enchanting steampunk fantasy debut in the bestselling vein of Trudi Canavan and Gail Carriger.
Orphaned as a child, Octavia Leander was doomed to grow up on the streets until Miss Percival saved her and taught her to become a medician. Gifted with incredible powers, the young healer is about to embark on her first mission, visiting suffering cities in the far reaches of the war-scarred realm. But the airship on which she is traveling is plagued by a series of strange and disturbing occurrences, including murder, and Octavia herself is threatened.
Suddenly, she is caught up in a flurry of intrigue: the dashingly attractive steward may be one of the infamous Clockwork Daggers—the Queen’s spies and assassins—and her cabin-mate harbors disturbing secrets. But the danger is only beginning, for Octavia discovers that the deadly conspiracy aboard the airship may reach the crown itself.
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I just read a fabulous book set during/just after the Peninsular Wars, if anyone out there enjoys that setting (no ballrooms, either) plus a completely whoop-ass heroine. It’s Once A Soldier, part of Mary Jo Putney’s Rogues Redeemed series (Mac and Lady Kiri make a small appearance).
Addendum: this is the first book in the Rogues Redeemed series, which is a spinoff of the Lost Lords. I get all these serieseseses confused…
FYI – The Balogh book is a reissue, originally published in 1992.
How are the Balogh characters “destined” to be on opposite sides? The Portuguese aristocracy was largely pro-British during the Peninsular War (and after and before), and the ancien regime French aristocracy weren’t particularly pro-Bonaparte, although many did make their peace with the Empire.
Why would a dagger be clockwork? That makes no sense. Daggers don’t have moving parts.
I have read Loving a Lost Lord a few times, and just listened to the audio from my library. There are a few surprises, though the villain is pretty easy to pick out if you’re paying attention. Definitely worth the read.
@ Dread Pirate Rachel:
Perhaps the clockwork dagger is of the “unnecessarily slow dipping mechanism” school of weaponry. The stabbee would be restrained in some fashion, and the dagger would advance in minute yet menacing increments while the stabber left the scene to establish an alibi for the time of the eventual murder…
@Rebecca: According to some of the Goodreads reviews, the heroine has a British/Portuguese mother and a French father, and I believe she’s a spy in the book.
@Dread Pirate Rachel:
GOD BLESS YOU. It’s like Steampunk Bingo: Just sprinkle your book randomly with the words clockwork, goggles, corset, gears, brass, buckle, airship, velocipede, alchemy, elixir…and IT’S ALCHEMY! YOU’VE GOT STEAMPUNK!
@Ren Benton,
I like it! It’s like a classic James Bond villain’s weapon, if Bond were set in a steam-powered alternate universe.
@Marjorie Ingall,
Have you heard the song “Just Glue Some Gears On It (And Call It Steampunk)”? I feel like it might appeal to you.
I need to go download the Putney, since Milan’s Brothers Sinister series has trained me to catnip over Special Name Boys’ Club with Sequelbait….:)
I also need to go download the Mary Jo Putney. Haven’t read a ship-wreck story in a while.
I read Secrets in Scarlet, enjoyed the suspense part of this story, and glommed the entire Rookery Rogues series. Sergeant Thaddeus Knight is a memorable and honorable hero, but in my mind’s eye, he didn’t look like the new cover guy.
I read “Beyond the Sunrise” when it was first published and enjoyed it immensely. There are almost no ballroom scenes and a lot of very convincing descriptions of two people trow together by necessity rather than mutual affection traveling through Spain destroyed by war. Mary Balogh at her best.
Such a pity that so many of these are only in the US stores. 🙁
@Elizabeth: I know! So sorry! Unfortunately, most romance sales tend to be US only, despite the genre having so many readers globally.