This HaBO request comes from Soleil, who is searching for this historical romance:
I have been looking for this book for years, I believe that I read it in the 90s and that is Regency-ish.
A very beautiful young woman is (I think) under the guardianship of a military man and his wife. A nobleman sees her and covets her for her beauty – they don’t know each other and he is kind of an a-hole, but they marry. Something happens, I think a friend of his is jealous and sets it up so that the husband thinks his wife is cheating on him. He banishes her to an estate that she is not allowed to leave and then takes off.
A year or more passes and he comes back to find that she has established herself as a hostess of some note at the estate and has brought his illegitimate daughter to live with her – not sure about the daughter living there.
What I do remember is that he was a widower and had a couple of legitimate children, who lived with their maternal grandparents and one or more illegitimate children that were in paid care and he is all huffy about the children mixing. I am not sure how they reconcile, but I do know that the illegitimate daughter does live with them at some point.
I thought that it might be an early Mary Balogh but in my memory of it, the flavour isn’t quite right.
Wow, the hero sounds all sorts of awful.
This sounds like something by Catherine Coulter.
Sounds a bit Eloisa James-ish…
following!
I suspect this is a common plot… I know I have read a couple like this. I wonder if it is a Courtney Milan or a Sabrina Jeffries.
I just looked through 683 books marked historical, looking for this. I’m sure I have read this. Does she stumble across one “illegitimate” son at a horse race of some sort? In the stables? I may be mixing this up with another.
It’s almost Lord of Scoundrels-ish except Dane wasn’t a widower and only had the one illegitimate son. And Jessica wouldn’t let him leave. lol
I’m interested too!
Did I miss something along the way about the “love” buttons? I came back to check for a search update on this one and noticed the buttons are gone 🙁
I could swear I’ve read this but have no idea which book it is!
@Cayenne: We had to temporarily disable the plugin because it was breaking things.
I thought Catherine Coulter too, or Judith McNaught – theirs are the kind of heroes who’d do this kind of thing. But I checked their bibliography and couldn’t find anything that fit 🙁
99% of these HABOs are like “wait that guy’s the hero?!
@Cayenne and @Amanda…”love buttons” made me snort laugh because I’m 12…that being said, I really want to read this novel
Based on Google and reading a few reviews and synopses, this HABO has some things in common with Beyond Scandal by Brenda Joyce, which was published in 1995. It sounds like it has all sorts of old school shenanigans.
Annie,99% of these HABOs Heros from the 1990s ARE A-holes because that trope took forever to disappear.
1970s Romance will curl your feminist hair in many cases. Much pillaging and raping by pirates, and invaders and barbarians, Oh My!
We took awhile to let ourselves and our heroines CHOSE sex outside marriage. There is still a lot of seducing, and not enough decision making.
@Annie – thank you! I´m glad I´m not the only one who´s constantly going “HE WHAT?!? – I hope she DTMF!”
Hmm, if this is Beyond Scandal, no, thanks! Awful “hero”…
@Annie
wait that guy’s the hero?!
… and that’s why we’re all avidly awaiting the return of the upvote function. (Not holding my breath though, at least not literally, because last time a similar problem happened, it took weeks and weeks, maybe even months.)
@kay beautiful comment!
I read regency romance novels as a teen, Heyer and Cartland with all her angels singing and hearts soaring (imagery for orgasm is my guess now). I tried Rosemary Rogers in college but as a baby feminist, rebelling against my conservative Texas upbringing, I couldn’t stomach the rapey tropes so I didn’t read a romance novel for 25 years. A woman I know and deeply respect was a romance blogger. I was all stuffed-shirt, flouncy, and huffy about people who read regency romance novels but she talked me into trying them again, and dear reader, I was hooked and have been for the last 15 years.
I find it interesting and a little sad it took the new century for historical romance writers to give their heroines’ sexual agency with minimal or zero slut-shaming. I hope I’m wrong about this. Please tell me I’m wrong.
The “love buttons” are back!
@Laura Ann
You chose wisely. It is sad how long this change in the field has taken. May I commend Scarlett Peckham for her new novel “The Rakess”, inspired by women like Mary Wollstoncraft, author of “A Vindication of the Roghts of Women?”
@kayJarrell I loved The Rakess but I LOVED The Duke I Ruined. It would be interesting to read Beyond Scandel on the heels of a Peckham novel.