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Lord Holt Takes a Bride
Lord Holt Takes a Bride by Vivienne Lorret is $1.99! This is the first book in The Mating Habits of Scoundrels series. I’m super curious about this one because it seems to take the kidnapping trope and flip it; the heroine’s friends kidnap the hero and it seems the heroine has to smooth things over. Have you read this one?
USA Today Bestselling Author Vivienne Lorret launches a charming new trilogy about three debutantes who get more than they bargained for when it comes to the mating habits of scoundrels . . .
Heiress Winnifred Humphries refuses to marry the odious man her parents have chosen. She’ll marry for love or not at all. But how does a woman know a man truly loves her? Needing answers, she sets out to discover the marriage habits of London’s aristocrats. Yet when her friends kidnap a lord for research, Winn knows they’ve gone too far. Now she’s facing a wickedly handsome scoundrel who wants revenge.
Lord Asher Holt has the perfect plan to free himself of his father’s debts. But when a trio of foolish debutantes abducts him, their scheme ruins everything! Fuming and tied to a chair, Holt overhears that one of them is an heiress. Perhaps he isn’t above a little kidnapping either.
Yet, when the heiress runs away from her own wedding and straight into his waiting carriage, Holt finds himself on an adventure he’ll never forget, falling in love with a woman worth more than any treasure. But will Winn ever believe his heart only desires her . . . and not her fortune?
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The Earl Next Door
The Earl Next Door by Charis Michaels is $1.99! This book came out a couple months ago and Elyse had picked it for March’s Hide Your Wallet post. Some readers mentioned that the book does have a slow start, but many loved the writing. Have you read this one?
Charis Michaels makes her Avon Impulse debut with the first book in her new historical romance series, The Bachelor Lords of London…featuring a brooding earl and the American heiress who charms him.
American heiress Piety Grey is on the run. Suddenly in London and facing the renovation of a crumbling townhouse, she’s determined to make a new life for herself—anything is better than returning to New York City where a cruel mother and horrid betrothal await her. The last thing she needs is a dark, tempting earl inciting her at every turn…
Trevor Rheese, the Earl of Falcondale, isn’t interested in being a good neighbor. After fifteen years of familial obligation, he’s finally free. But when the disarmingly beautiful Piety bursts through his wall—and into his life—his newfound freedom is threatened…even as his curiosity is piqued.
Once Piety’s family arrives in London, Falcondale suddenly finds himself in the midst of a mock courtship to protect the seductive woman who’s turned his world upside down. It’s all for show—or at least it should be. But if Falcondale isn’t careful, he may find a very real happily ever after with the woman of his dreams…
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A Lady by Midnight
RECOMMENDED: A Lady by Midnight by Tessa Dare is $3.99 at most places! Sorry, Kobo! Sarah loved this book and gave it an A-:
Kate and Thorne and their difficult and sharply entertaining courtship made for a wonderful afternoon of reading. I can’t tell you how happy I am that everyone can enjoy this book now.
A temporary engagement, a lifetime in the making . . .
After years of fending for herself, Kate Taylor found friendship and acceptance in Spindle Cove—but she never stopped yearning for love. The very last place she’d look for it is in the arms of Corporal Thorne. The militia commander is as stone cold as he is brutally handsome. But when mysterious strangers come searching for Kate, Thorne steps forward as her fiancé. He claims to have only Kate’s safety in mind. So why is there smoldering passion in his kiss?
Long ago, Samuel Thorne devoted his life to guarding Kate’s happiness. He wants what’s best for her, and he knows it’s not marriage to a man like him. To outlast their temporary engagement, he must keep his hands off her tempting body and lock her warm smiles out of his withered heart. It’s the toughest battle of this hardened warrior’s life . . . and the first he seems destined to lose.
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A Rogue by Any Other Name
READER RECOMMENDED: A Rogue by Any Other Name by Sarah MacLean is $1.99! This is book one in the Rules of Scoundrels series, all of which take place in and around a gaming hall. Fans of MacLean, do you think this is a good place to start with her books?
What a scoundrel wants, a scoundrel gets…
A decade ago, the Marquess of Bourne was cast from society with nothing but his title. Now a partner in London’s most exclusive gaming hell, the cold, ruthless Bourne will do whatever it takes to regain his inheritance—including marrying perfect, proper Lady Penelope Marbury.
A broken engagement and years of disappointing courtships have left Penelope with little interest in a quiet, comfortable marriage, and a longing for something more. How lucky that her new husband has access to such unexplored pleasures.
Bourne may be a prince of London’s underworld, but he vows to keep Penelope untouched by its wickedness—a challenge indeed as the lady discovers her own desires, and her willingness to wager anything for them… even her heart.
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Anne Rice’s BEAUTY’S KINGDOM, a 2015 sequel to her 1980s erotic Sleeping Beauty series, is a $1.99 KDD. The original books (which Rice published as A.N. Roquelaure) might be described as the Boomers’ 50 Shades. They were set in a fairy-tale kingdom where sexual servitude was the norm—featuring lots of bdsm activity and all sexual orientations. This later book apparently makes the servitude consensual as opposed to mandated as it was in the earlier books.
A Rogue by any Other Name is a great place to start MacLean books! The first two books are great and introduces Penelope and Philippa Marbury, both excellent heroines in their own rights. I admit that I had trouble starting this one because Penelope gets thrown over in MacLean’s first series, Love By Numbers, and she comes off a bit passive and milquetoast as a result. I gave it a second try years later and was able to separate the ending of the old series from this new one and loved Penelope’s daring as she navigates her marriage.
By all means, go back and read Love by Numbers (it’s super emotional), but Rules of Scoundrels is good too!
WHERE THE DEAD LIE (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery Book 12) by C.S. Harris is $1.99 at Amazon US today. I can’t keep the titles or their order straight, but if you’re looking to fill in gaps, this price may help.
I love A Rogue by Any Other Name but fyi for those new to MacLean, I would say this is probably the biggest asshole of all her heroes. It works for me because MacLean does make him suffer and grovel butttttt YMMV.
I like Vivienne Lorret’s writing a good deal, she has a sense of humor that comes through in her writing, especially in the book (and the rest of that series) profiled above. The girls/young women who kidnapped the guy on impulse were like “Welp, this turned out to be a BAD decision…” right in front of him. Think of them as female versions of Drones Club members from PG Wodehouse…
A Rogue by Any Other Name has an awful hero—I seem to recall an early scene where he plays the “well, I’m ripping off all your clothes against your will so you can’t leave, but I’m not actually raping you, so I deserve a cookie!” card. Blech.
I like some of MacLean’s other series, but this one is not my favorite. (Bourne even manages to be an asshole when he’s just a background character in the rest of the series.)
Loretts’ been all over the map for me; I think the Dare’s my favorite of the bunch. I like McLean usually but here the hero is a bit Much for me.
I love MacLean in general, but this book is the *last* of her books you should start with. I agree with @FashionablyEvil, Bourne is utterly awful and completely self-involved, and forces Penelope into marriage because of his own feelings of entitlement and inability to deal with his own bad choices. Considering the rights a man had over his wife’s body in that time and place, forcing someone into marriage and forcing them to have sex are not all that different in my mind. Her panic as she realizes she doesn’t have a choice was legitimately triggering.
Penelope is a wonderful heroine, but I started and ended the book wanting to shove Bourne facefirst into a toilet. Start with One Good Earl Deserves a Lover–it’s one of my perennial comfort re-reads.
@Annie Kate: yes to everything you wrote. Bourne is a douche. One Good Earl, however, is sooo good. Plus the hero is a redhead which makes me feel all swoony.
A Lady by Midnight is not my favorite of the Spindle Cove books but I remember it being really sweet. Might have to re-read. Also, I do not believe the hero is a Duke or anything Duke-adjacent, if you have Duke fatigue.
You all may have Duke fatigue but I have Gaming Hall fatigue. Can we try something different for our bad dukes and their bros to be involved in?
TW: portrayal of a free “colored” servant that I did not like at all
Disclaimer: I didn’t go read the free preview on Amazon thinking this book was going to be about historical accuracy. Because it’s not. So I’m not criticising it on that basis.
The Earl Next Door immediately struck the wrong note with me when a few pages in, an older woman twitches aside her curtain and announces that the heroine has arrived with “an aboriginal” servant. Well OK then.
I read a few pages later into the preview, and the heroine bursts unexpectedly through a secret passage into the titular earl’s house. After some farfetched explanations, the heroine Miss Piety Grey summons her servant, whose name is – no, it isn’t, yes _it is_ – Tiny. And it turns out that Tiny calls her mistress “Missy Pie”. I just could not. DNF DNF DNF.
A Rogue by Any Other Name is my all-time favorite Sarah MacLean book, with Bourne being my favorite hero.
I don’t know that it’s particularly out of the ordinary for the time, but I found Lady By Midnight very jarring. I’m far from the last word on it, especially since when I’m disturbed I start skimming and skipping to the end.
Still, I might have some intuition. I correctly pegged the objectionable ‘big families are warm and lovely (only children, not so much)’ messaging in Act Like It, well before the author went all subtext-to-text in an interview with SBTB. (On the positive part only. But positioning a big family member as ‘saviour’ of one of ours is hardly validating.)
I didn’t like the socioeconomic status messaging in Lady By Midnight. It seemed to be participating heavily in the ‘money corrupts’ and ‘poverty and adversity build character’ simplifications; and worse, encompass the zone where that intersects with toxic sexual politics to mean that a woman would have to sacrifice her self-image to maintain financial security, i.e. act ‘mercenary’.
That is not the way it works. It’s just the way people who don’t have money or don’t have financial abuse in their family, or are in denial about it, like to talk to victims so they can feel superior.
How it actually works is pretty much how Mary Trump describes. Money is a love language. Narcissists and enablers say they don’t love you by unfairly directing money away from you.
And then randos revictimise you by acting like *you’re* the dirty person here, because you can still read the writing on the wall even when dollar signs are substituted for the letter S. Oh joy.
I was thrilled when (irrc) Dani Collins had a character nip this right in the bud. Her Cinderella separated mom told the rich dad straight out her kid was going to get all the trimmings financially, was NOT going to play second fiddle that way to any planned kids he could have if he repartnered.
That was a ‘just’ a category. But it was the same decade and shorter. Not good going for the historical.
I was really turned off by the hero in Rogue By Any Other Name. He was just so mean and dismissive and hateful. The heroine is a lovely person, and the plot of the book is that she has to persuade him that she has basic worth as a human being. Do not start with this MacLean. Maybe try Nine Rules To Break?