-
Shanna
Shanna by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss $1.99! Old skool alert! This is definitely a formative historical romance text, but that comes with a warning that it probably won’t hold up. One of the foreign covers of Shanna is my absolute favorite.
A pact is sealed in secret behind the foreboding walls of Newgate Prison. In return for a night of unparalleled pleasure, a dashing condemned criminal consents to wed a beautiful heiress, thereby rescuing her with his name from an impending and abhorred arranged union. But in the fading echoes of hollow wedding vows, a solemn promise is broken, as a sensuous free spirit takes flight to a lush Caribbean paradise, abandoning the stranger she married to face the gallows unfulfilled.
But Ruark Beauchamp’s destiny is now eternally intertwined with that of the tempestuous, intoxicating Shanna. He will be free . . . and he will find her. For no iron ever forged can imprison his resolute passion. And no hangman’s noose will deny Ruark the ecstasy that is rightfully his.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
The Wrong Highlander
The Wrong Highlander by Lynsay Sands is $1.99! This is a price-matched Kindle Daily Deal. It’s part of the Highland Brides series and these covers are pure fan service and I’m very okay with it. I’m super curious about this one because it has the heroine kidnapping the wrong highlander, but Sands’ writing style is hit or miss for me.
A laird’s daughter kidnaps a Highlander—and loses her heart… in New York Times bestselling author Lynsay Sands’ new historical romance…
Lady Evina Maclean has heard much about Rory Buchanan’s skill as a healer. What she hasn’t heard is how good the brawny Highlander looks bathing in a waterfall. But Evina can’t afford the distraction, for her ailing father urgently needs care. Only when she’s rendered Buchanan unconscious and dragged him back to her family’s castle does the truth emerge—it’s not Rory she’s kidnapped but his brother Conran.
Other ladies try to ensnare Conran with flattery. Evina hits him over the head with the hilt of her sword to save her kin—and Conran likes the spirited redhead all the more for it. He’s learned enough from his brother to heal Evina’s father, but there are other dangers swirling around the Maclean clan. And while the beautiful, independent lady has sworn not to marry, this wrong Highlander may be just the right man for her.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
Best Laid Plans
Best Laid Plans by Roan Parrish is $1.99! This is book two in the contemporary romance Garnet Run series and was mentioned on a previous Hide Your Wallet. We also just talked about it as a recommendation in our two-part podcast cross with the Big Gay Fiction Podcast.
A man who’s been moving his whole life finally finds a reason to stay put.
Charlie Matheson has spent his life taking care of things. When his parents died two days before his eighteenth birthday, he took care of his younger brother, even though that meant putting his own dreams on hold. He took care of his father’s hardware store, building it into something known several towns over. He took care of the cat he found in the woods…so now he has a cat.
When a stranger with epic tattoos and a glare to match starts coming into Matheson’s Hardware, buying things seemingly at random and lugging them off in a car so beat-up Charlie feels bad for it, his instinct is to help. When the man comes in for the fifth time in a week, Charlie can’t resist intervening.
Rye Janssen has spent his life breaking things. Promises. His parents’ hearts. Leases. He isn’t used to people wanting to put things back together—not the crumbling house he just inherited, not his future and certainly not him. But the longer he stays in Garnet Run, the more he can see himself belonging there. And the more time he spends with Charlie, the more he can see himself falling asleep in Charlie’s arms…and waking up in them.
Is this what it feels like to have a home—and someone to share it with?
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks! -
You’re the Earl That I Want
You’re the Earl That I Want by Kelly Bowen is $2.99! This is the third book in the Lords of Worth series, but it can be read as a standalone. Readers seemed to be divided on the heroine. Some loved how confident and intelligent she was, while others felt her personality overshadowed the hero.
THE EARL DOTH PROTEST . . .
For businessman Heath Hextall, inheriting an earldom has been a damnable nuisance. The answer: find a well-bred, biddable woman to keep his life in order and observe the required social niceties. But it’s always been clear that Lady Josephine Somerhall is not that woman. Once a shy slip of a girl, Joss is now brilliant, beautiful chaos in a ball gown.
. . . BUT THE LADY KNOWS BEST
In her heart, Joss has always loved Heath, the one person she’s always been able to count on. That doesn’t mean she wants to marry him though. Without a husband, Joss can do as she pleases—and now, it pleases her to solve the mystery of an encoded file given to Heath by a dying man. It’s put Heath in peril once, and Joss won’t let that happen again. She’ll do what she must to ensure the earl’s safety. And to remind him that what she lacks in convention, she makes up for in passion.
Add to Goodreads To-Read List →
This book is on sale at:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
Don't want to miss an ebook sale? Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll get the week's available deals each Friday.
I am a child of the 70s, therefore I can unreservedly admit that Shana has a place of honor on my keeper shelf. Is there dubious/non-existent consent? Yes. Is that sex in a carriage? Yes. Is there white privilege slavery? Yes. Is the prose purple? The absolute purpliest. Are there pirates? Why, yes, yes there are. I reread it every five or six years. Do I still love it? Yes. Have we come far since 1977? Thank goodness, YES.
Funny side note. The bff and I were watching the first episode of Outlander and at one point looked at each other and said “We’ve been saying Ruark’s name wrong!” At the same time. Which is what happens when you share friendship & books with someone for 40 odd years.
I really enjoyed Best Laid Plans. The whole Garnet Run series is just wonderful, ooey gooey low conflict romance at its best.
Here’s my GR review:
A-/B+. I loved this. The set up and some of the details required a big suspension of disbelief (why would you demolish the inside of a building without a solid plan for how to pay to rehab it?) but the emotions worked really well for me.
Ah, Kathleen Woodiwiss—such a formative part of my teenage romance reading! Right up there with Rosemary Rogers, Shirlee Busbee, and Rebecca Brandewyne, among others. Unlike @DonnaMarie, however, I don’t think I could bring myself to re-read any of my old-skool favorites. It would be, perhaps, too chastening an experience: “Wait—I once loved this? How? Why? Oh God, I need brain bleach!”
But those Lynsay Sands book covers? Those I can go back to time and time again!
I’ve got to reread Shanna now. Ruark was way too good for that spoiled entitled brat but oh how I loved that story back in the day. All because of Ruark!
I remember seeing Shanna in Waldenbooks back in the day. It had this bright, day-glo orange cover. I really wanted to read it but it just I my body wasn’t ready (full disclosure I was like… 14). So I got The Wolf and the Dove as a gateway book to Shanna. LOL. I remember thinking Shanna was such a snot. But she won me over and Ruark’s family rocked.
I just saw Kathleen Woodiwiss books are finally coming out in audio in April 2022. I am mostly looking forward to The Rose in Winter. It remains one of my favorites and holds up well. I hope she lands a good narrator.
Second the recommendation for Best Laid Plans. The whole series is great for warm fuzzy (but still steamy) romance. I grabbed the first one cheap or free on a whim and ended up loving all of them.
It’s fascinating how influential Woodiwiss’ books were for many of us. Not necessarily in good ways, as mentioned above in other comments, but still my first glimpse into “good heavens, that’s hot and I am here for it.” And the dialog, the oh-so-flowery dialog that gripped me, some of which I still (mostly) remember.
As much as I may not want to re-read these books/authors now, I will always be grateful for what they made possible.
Highly recommend any Kelly Bowen historical romance; I gave this one 5 stars (note that I’m a very generous star giver, so that’s likely less for others).
I’ve read all her HRs, and I’m kind of bummed that it seems she may have crossed over to women’s fiction. Her heroines are amazing, and I hope she writes more; but I’d definitely say go and read the three trilogies (they can all be read as standalones) she’s written.
I enjoyed this Kelly Bowen book. It’s been a couple of years so details are a bit fuzzy, I do remember it’s a page turner with an interesting plot, kickass heroine, witty and not too angsty.
I have never read Shanna and it was on my mother’s bookshelf or nightstand for years! I read The Wolf and The Dove, Ashes in the Wind and The Flame and The Flower, but for some reason I never grabbed Shanna off the shelf. I did make an attempt at revisiting TF&TF a few years ago and definitely did not feel the magic that my 13yo self did. Am I setting myself up for a similar experience here with Shanna?
No Woodiwiss then, and none today. At least one could get a laugh out of reading Barbara Cartland back-cover blurbs aloud in a dramatic voice …
You’re the Earl That I Want? Seriously? We’re riffing on the titles of songs from musicals?
I’ve read all the Garnet Run books to date and I think “Best Laid Plans” was my favorite, largely because of Charlie. Rye’s whole brooding vibe can get annoying and it felt a bit too much like instalove on his end, but I really liked how Charlie grew as a character and learned to think of himself as a person in his own right, rather than as someone who has to take care of everyone else and never thinks about his own life, goals, needs, or wants.
By the time “The Lights on Knockbridge Lane” comes along, Charlie and Rye are a happily settled pair of cinnamon rolls and it makes me happy.
@LJO, yes.
I, like @DDD read Woodiwiss in my formative teenage years. I remember buying Shanna in large format paperback when it was released. I read it many, many times. It is not one I have read in many, many years. I tried rereading The Flame and the Flower a few years ago and it was such a horrifying experience I thought I should never read any of them again, and just treasure my memories. I think Shanna might be slightly less problematic, but only slightly. She is a spoiled brat, and Roark is an alpha hole, although maybe not as much as Brandon from TF&TF. If you go into the book to understand Romance’s past, you’ll probably be fine. If you go in with a modern mind, expecting to love it, I think you will be very disappointed. Trying it at $1.99 might be worth it, just go in with your eyes open.
I can’t help loving Woodiwiss. I SWEAR I’m enlightened but there’s something about old skool and Woodiwiss is among the best.
I’ve said it multiple times before and I will continue to stand by it—It’s best to view old-skool bodice-rippers the way we view puberty: something we had to go through to get where we are today but not necessarily something we should want to repeat.
I loved The Wrong Highlander. I very much enjoy the Highland Bride series, and I think this one is my favorite so far.
Big fan of the Garnet Run series by the fairly new to me author Roan Parrish. I really adore Charlie!
Oh Shanna! Brings back memories of my junior year in HS, this book was passed around my civics class until it was falling apart.
Chiming in to say I too read Shanna when I was in highschool. My 80 something grandmother was living with us and I stole her copy and read it on the sly. My g-mom was a big Rosemary Rogers fan and we used to tease her about her books raising her blood pressure. Will I read Shanna again? Nah but the memories of reading something more “adult” than a Cartland or Heyer romance are sweet.
kinda random, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate the extra information about each book that you give, Amanda! Especially comparing and summarizing reader reviews. I don’t know how many you read, but it seems like a time consuming task.
In college, I took a course on Medieval and Modern Romance, and one week we read The Flame and the Flower and some old Harlequins. The Harlequins were pretty shoddily written and honestly much duller than anything else I’d read in college, but TFATF was absolutely impossible to put down. Woodiwiss is just a great storyteller. Her books have pretty much every problematic element of the true bodice-ripper genre because, heck, she created it (pretty much) and popularized it. It’s not just that have her books have tons of sex in them, but there’s something about her plotting and structuring that just grabs you. I mean, she’s not a “turn to the sex scenes” author. She was supposedly discovered off of the slushiest of slush piles.
I read Shanna with the day-glo cover at age 11 when the movers accidentally left us with a box of random paperbacks belonging to someone else. Definitely too young!