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The Bride Test
RECOMMENDED: The Bride Test by Helen Hoang is $1.99! Hoang’s debut is also on sale. I loved this book so much and gave it an A-:
The Bride Test is so beautiful and Hoang was right when she said it was impossible not to love Esme. She’s tenacious and battles against her fear of failure, of judgement, and of her own self-doubt, to become this confident and self-assured woman. This Bride Test has only solidified my love for Hoang’s romances; they are truly a gift to the genre.
From the critically acclaimed author of The Kiss Quotient comes a romantic novel about love that crosses international borders and all boundaries of the heart…
Khai Diep has no feelings. Well, he feels irritation when people move his things or contentment when ledgers balance down to the penny, but not big, important emotions — like grief. And love. He thinks he’s defective. His family knows better— that his autism means he just processes emotions differently. When he steadfastly avoids relationships, his mother takes matters into her own hands and returns to Vietnam to find him the perfect bride.
As a mixed-race girl living in the slums of Ho Chi Minh City, Esme Tran has always felt out of place. When the opportunity arises to come to America and meet a potential husband, she can’t turn it down, thinking this could be the break her family needs. Seducing Khai, however, doesn’t go as planned. Esme’s lessons in love seem to be working… but only on herself. She’s hopelessly smitten with a man who’s convinced he can never return her affection.
With Esme’s time in the United States dwindling, Khai is forced to understand he’s been wrong all along. And there’s more than one way to love.
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The Spymaster’s Lady
The Spymaster’s Lady by Joanna Bourne is 99c! This book has been recommended in five (FIVE!) podcast episodes, and is often attributed to being readers’ first foray into romance. Have you read it? What’d you think?
She’s never met a man she couldn’t deceive…until now.
She’s braved battlefields. She’s stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She’s played the worldly courtesan, the naïve virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can’t outwit…
British spymaster Robert Grey must enter France and bring back the brilliant, beautiful-and dangerous-Fox Cub. His duty is to capture her and her secrets for England. When the two natural enemies are thrown into prison, they forge an uneasy alliance to break free. But their pact is temporary and betrayal seems inevitable as the fates of nations hang in the balance.
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Lily and the Duke
Lily and the Duke by Helen Hardt is 99c! This is book one in the Sex and the Season series. Erotic historical romance is definitely high on my catnip list, but Hardt’s contemporaries were never my thing because of the domineering heroes. Have you read this one? What did you think?
Wiltshire, England 1845
Lady Lily Jameson is thrilled to attend a house party given by the Daniel Farnsworth, the Duke of Lybrook, but not because he’s the most eligible bachelor in the peerage. Her only interest is his famous art collection, which reputedly includes a painting by her favorite artist, Jan Vermeer.
Daniel, duke only by virtue of the untimely deaths of his father and older brother, wants nothing to do with his new duties. He’d rather continue his rakish ways. When he finds the lovely Lily sneaking around the property in search of his art collection, sparks fly.
Despite her father’s wishes, Lily has no intention of marrying. She wants to travel the world to gain real life inspiration for her painting and writing. And what could be better worldly experience than a passionate affair with the notorious Duke of Lybrook?
But circumstances may change the game and the players…and danger lurks, as well.
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The Assistants
The Assistants by Camille Perri is $1.99! This is a Robin Hood-esque story set in the world of working women. Some readers mention you need a suspension of disbelief, given the apparent thievery. However, others like the anti-heroine feel to the main character. Have you read this one?
A wry and astute debut about a young Manhattanite whose embezzlement scam turns her into an unlikely advocate for the leagues of overeducated and underpaid assistants across the city.
Tina Fontana is the hapless but brazen thirty-year-old executive assistant to Robert Barlow, the all-powerful and commanding CEO of Titan Corp., a multinational media conglomerate. She’s excellent at her job and beloved by her famous boss—but after six years of making his reservations for restaurants she’d never get into on her own and pouring his drinks from bottles that cost more than her rent, she’s bored, broke, and just a bit over it all.
When a technical error with Robert’s travel-and-expenses report presents Tina with the opportunity to pay off the entire balance of her student loan debt with what would essentially be pocket change for her boss, she struggles with the decision: She’s always played by the rules. But it’s such a relatively small amount of money for the Titan Corporation—and for her it would be a life-changer . . .
The Assistants speaks directly to a new generation of women who feel stuck and unable to get ahead playing by the rules. It will appeal to all of those who have ever asked themselves, “How is it that after all these years, we are still assistants?”
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CRIER’S WAR by Nina Varela (robot civil war with lesbian romance) and PLANETFALL by Emma Newman (space colony built on a foundation of rapidly unraveling lies) are each $1.99.
I liked The Bride Test for the families (mostly the hero’s). I also remember ultimately disliking the hero – he was too often dismissive of the heroine for my taste.
Diane Wynne Jones’ The Land of Ingary Trilogy (Howl’s Moving Castle, Castle in the Air & House of Many Ways) is 1.99$ on Amazon Canada.
Absolutely love the whole Spymasters series. Some of the best writing out there.
Joanna Bourne’s books are amazing. I loved The Spymaster’s Lady, and only wish it had a less ridiculous cover. “Guy who does not know how clothes work” does not come close to representing her novel or characters.
All of these are pretty darn good!
Joanna Bourne’s dialogue is so WITTY, which doesn’t really convey how assume her work is, but is one of the things I love best. That and all the feels I have for her characters. Not a word out of place.
Carrie Vaughn’s KITTY AND THE MIDNIGHT HOUR is on sale at Amazon for $2.99. This is the first in her werewolf series featuring a radio host who talks about supernatural creatures and lives. The radio segments are outstanding all by themselves and Kitty’s growth over the series is one to watch.
For old, old (1930s old) school mysteries, THE DOOR by Mary Roberts Rinehart is available for .99 at Amazon. I cut my mystery-loving teeth on her books (thank you, Dad) and while some aspects of her work are problematic, the complexity and insight of her plots can’t be beat. She was the American Agatha Christie before there was an Agatha Christie.
*sigh* awesome, not assume.
@SusanH, The Spymaster’s Lady originally had a woman in a sort of calico dress on the cover, who was believable as Annique. I wish they would bring it back.
I agree with everyone posting about The Spymaster’s Lady – it is a wonderful book, and the entire series is fantastic. I have read them all and also listened to them on audio. 99 cents for this book is an absolute steal. If you haven’t read it yet, I am practically jumping up and down encouraging you to get it.
The Spymaster’s Lady is in my Top Ten–I just finished reading it for the third time and I enjoyed it as much as the first. Joanna Bourne’s writing is amazing, but I wish she would write some more books. Please, Joanna?
@Karin: This is the original MMPB cover for Spymaster’s Lady. The other cover is on a later trade paper issue. Not that I’m obsessive about Bourne’s writing, but I have them both, along with the ebook…
I had mixed feelings as I read The Bride Test, but ultimately concluded that I really liked it. Hoang does not make her autistic characters adorable and quirky, she makes them seem very real. So, this is not the kind of book where the hero is every-woman’s fantasy. I also was troubled by Esme at first, as she keeps secrets and tells lies, but I felt like I came to understand her more as the story evolved. This is my second Hoang novel, and she will be an auto-buy author for me from now on.
PS. As for The Assistants (which I have not read), was I the only one that was seriously amused by the description that this book is for the “new” generation of women who feel stuck in dead-end jobs and unable to get ahead? As if this is a “new” problem for women???
Oof. This “How is it that after all these years, we are still assistants?” rubs me the wrong way. If you’re asking yourself that, explore another opportunity–there are plenty of women and men who see executive assistance as their passion and career path and you shouldn’t be in the role (especially for “all these years”) if you aren’t one of them because it’s not doing you OR the person you support any favors.
Secondly: I worked at a large company with two women who embezzled company funds via expense reimbursement. They both went to jail!
I LOVED The Spymaster’s Lady and the rest of the series. I was totally snookered by Annique at the start.
I’m another fan of The Spymaster’s Lady and Joanna Bourne’s other books.
@Ren Benton – thanks!
I’ve really enjoyed both of Hoang’s books, but I think The Bride Test is my favorite. Both main characters are complex and require reader patience and attention, and in the end, it’s so worth it.
Love The Spymaster’s Lady. It is my favorite of Bourne’s terrific books.
Yet another vote for Spymaster’s Lady. My mom loved it too, so make that an additional vote! (I loved it so much I felt the need to come in here and join the chorus in case anyone was unsure.) All of the characters in the series have great banter, and the intrigue and mystery never requires a character to carry the idiot ball. Everyone gets to be smart…it’s just that occasionally they are outsmarted.
I also loved The Bride Test. I did not have the issues with the hero that other people did. I went in concerned because so many people had red-flagged him, and I wound up kind of surprised so many people did, tbh.
Darlynne, I was trying to find out what the acronym WITTY stood for. Took me awhile to realize what you meant.
I also love everything by Joanna Bourne. I wish she wrote faster, but I can see why her books take awhile, with the lush language. She’s a five-star writer.
I just read Lily and The Duke, and HATED it. If I could of thrown it I would of done it (alas I have a kindle). I took serious issues with the flat characters, instant love, a family owning so many art masterpieces (super well known) without even a little exposition on how they came to own them, a lame villain, a woman who gives up all her dreams within a matter of days for a guy, and some blindingly stupid medical stuff.
Sigh.
I do not understand how it is so highly rated on good reads or amazon.