A
Genre: Historical: European, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Erica. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Long Historical category.
The summary:
Douglas Allen needs a home for his aching heart
Douglas Allen, Viscount Amery, hates having arrived to his title without knowing how to manage his properties. Guinevere Hollister is a distant family connection raising her daughter in rural obscurity while stewarding the estate. Douglas reluctantly puts himself in Gwen’s hands for lessons in land husbandry and discovers beneath her prickly exterior a woman of passion and honor. Yet despite the closeness they find, she will not marry him.
Guinevere Hollister needs a champion
When the powerful Duke of Moreland arranges an engagement between Gwen and his heir, Douglas knows the marriage is not what Gwen wants. In Douglas’s eyes, Gwen deserves to make her own choices, and he will take on family, the meddling duke, and Gwen’s own lonely, stubborn heart to ensure his lady’s happiness.
Here is Erica's review:
I decided to review Douglas: Lord of Heartache because my hubby’s name is Doug and I thought calling him Douglas: Lord of Heartache would be hilarious. He was not as entertained as I was.
However! This book is more than just a goofy term of endearment. It is FANTASTIC. I had to stop taking notes because I was highlighting every other page and squeeing over it and the book was taking forever to read. In fact, it’s going to be hard as hell to find something critical to say, rather than just a bunch of vowel sounds of joy.
I will say that the beginning is… Weird. That may be because this is the eighth book in a series, which I was unaware of because I do not read book descriptions, but what it felt like was…it felt like there was a lengthy opening scene and then someone just hacked it down to the inciting incident without checking the rest of the scene to make sure that comments that had previously had some context weren’t now suddenly just hanging out there, making zero sense.
So, Douglas has just been promoted to the heir after his two brothers met untimely and somewhat violent ends. I got the feeling that maybe one of them had committed suicide, but it’s never really discussed. People are worried about him being depressed, and he certainly seems to be in the beginning. He is very stern, very proper, and after he drops a couple of weird religious remarks, I decided that he may have been going to be a preacher/priest before he became the heir, but this isn’t discussed either and the religious stuff goes away pretty quickly.
Anyway, so his family is broke, and one of Douglas’s relatives (somehow, this is all really weird and vague too) decides to sell Douglas an estate that isn’t really lived in and sends him to Guinevere, a cousin, to learn land management. Did you ever read A Lady Awakened by Cecilia Grant? I totally did because Sarah recommended it. My point is, they have really boring sex and then have these really great, sexy discussions about land management? That’s what I was thinking of this whole book, except that here, the land management discussions are foreplay. It’s pretty awesome.
Gwen is a “fallen woman” with an illegitimate daughter and is extremely jumpy and afraid of men and it is GLORIOUS to see how slowly Douglas works to make her comfortable with him, with touching, and eventually with the sexytimes. Every single time they fool around at all, he says: “I will not importune you for favors you are unwilling to give. I will stop if you ask it of me, and I will not cause you pain.” EVERY TIME. Because he knows that she needs to hear it. He knows that she’s been hurt before and he wants to do everything he possibly can to fix that hurt for her. IT IS SO DAMN PRECIOUS.
He’s… he’s so stuffy and proper and HOT all at the same time. It’s like the most socially awkward version of Darcy you can imagine – that’s Douglas.
Oh, one other piece of criticism. I wasn’t sure when this was supposed to be taking place. Until they started discussing George III and the Prince Regent, I thought it was much earlier than Regency. Like Georgian early. But anyway, regardless, this is a time period when cousins married. The two of them traveling together “as cousins” as some kind of safeguard for propriety? Not buying it, home slice. But anyway, that was a tiny, minor moment and it doesn’t even matter.
There’s a lot of other drama, involving meddling family members who were characters in other books and a character in the next book. Also the illegitimate daughter’s father and his family come back around and everything is a lot more complicated than first thought. There are some serious assholes, but they’re not who you first believe them to be. Well, except for the duke. That guy is a dick.
ANYWAY. It ends happily and wonderfully and IT IS JUST THE BEST. Well, okay, I will say that the last paragraph or two are pretty damn weak sauce, but at least it’s not an Epilogue of babies and happily-ever-afters. But that last paragraph could have been cut easily and would have been fantastic.
I just. I just don’t know what to say other than gooey vowel noises of joy. IT WAS SO AWESOME. He’s just. God he loves Gwen and Rose so damn much, it is just so fantastic.
Okay, I’m done now. I swear. Grading: A+, minus a bit for that weird ass beginning and the weak sauce ending, so that knocks it down to an A.
Now go read this damn book!
This book is available from:
As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
We also may use affiliate links in our posts, as well. Thanks!
You review equals my thoughts. Feels. Thank you for writing it. By the way, the “that guy is a dick” Duke? Before I read his story I entertained myself by imagining how the author was going to pull off a readable, satisfying book in which he was the hero. But she did.
Erica, I have so much enjoyed your reviews! I’ve been skipping around the Lonely Lords series, so I haven’t yet read Douglas’ story and thanks to you, have now moved it up on the TBR list. Be sure to read David, Lord of Honor when you get a chance. My favorite so far.
Thanks for a fun review. I haven’t read it yet, but I see that another book in the series Gabriel: Lord of Regrets (The Lonely Lords Book 5) is available free to Kindle readers. I read yet another of the author’s books yesterday which I enjoyed ~ The Duke’s Disaster (True Gentlemen).
I just discovered Grace Burrowes with The Laird and OMG what a powerful book. She handles some very dark subject matter very well. This book sounds right up there with it. Thanks for the review; I’ll be looking for this series as well!
Putting on TBR list. Thanks for posting the review. I really enjoyed it!
Thank you guys so much! I LOVED this book, so I’m just so glad that it came through in my review. I’ve already got the rest of the series on my TBR and I’m pretty excited to get into it. It’s a little daunting, considering how many books there are, but Douglas was so fantastic, I’m just stoked to start the rest of them.
I read most of Burrowes early books (the ones about the children of the Duke etc) and the first few of her Lonely Lords but then I got really tired of them.
They started to get really same-y to me, the Americanisms really started to grate, the “Lord of_____” titles seemed really silly, the character names got truly annoying (Beckmann? Really?) and the last one I read (the first of her Scottish-set ones) was the last straw. Her portrayal was sooooo stereotypical and her rendering of a Scottish “accent” made my eyeballs bleed.
So, despite enjoying her first few books, she’s an author I won’t read now.
Oh my stuffy proper hero. I er… need to read this.
That said, great review and while the thought of you calling your husband Douglas: Lord of Heartache is incredibly funny, please sell me on the word “hubby.” Hating it is my irrational pet peeve.
JScot, oh no! I admit I hate reading written accents (and Scottish annoys me the most), so I tend to steer clear of Scottish stories for that reason. That sucks that you found the series annoying, though. I really enjoyed this book, but this is my first Burrowes, do who knows?
JW. *attempting to sell you on “hubby”* Okay, it’s not my favorite word either. But “husband” feels very stoff and formal, and that’s just not my bag. I usually call him just Doug, but I felt like that would be invasive to his privacy or something? (Although why I thought that when I say his name is Doug is completely baffling to me. Brains are weird.) “Partner” feels forced and like i’m more interesting than I am. I like “significant other” in conversation (because calling myself a wife is weird) but it also feels stiff when writing. “Lover” reminds me of that sketch on SNL with Will Ferrell. So. “Hubby” is the best in causal reference. I think. But brains are weird and if it irritates the hell out of you, that’s cool too. 😉
And for the record, he refuses to answer to Douglas: Lord of Heartache. Hahaha!;)
I think the Scottish accents really grate on me because I have a Scottish accent, and a strong one at that. The speech patterns depicted on the age are usually some kind of generic “Scottish” without taking into account the very distinct accents found across the country, with a mishmash of words.
Someone once recommended Outlander to me (way before I knew what a fan-following it had) and I honestly couldn’t finish it. It was like all the worst bits of Braveheart (wait…Braveheart was all crap with no redeeming historical value whatsoever) coupled with any romantic comedy featuring a token Scotsman for comedy value with added rapey-ness.
I find the Scottish romance genre baffling – but probably because I am a dour Scot. As Burns wrote:
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
If that’s how the rest of the world sees us, God help us!
Oh yeah, I bet that would be frustrating as all hell. I just can’t stand any dialect that’s written as dialect. The Scottish accent is the worst, but some books about the American South are pretty bad too. Of course, the worst offender is Mark Twain. It just hurts my eyeballs. Just mention that they have an accent and write like a normal person, my brain is sophisticated enough to make the accent work in my head. 🙂
What really bugs me is the “Regency” set historicals that have the hero running around in a kilt (forbidden by law at the time) and portraying Scotland as a savage place barely evolved from the dark ages.
Late 1700-early 1800 Scotland was the birthplace of the Enlightenment, Edinburgh and Glasgow were famous for their universities and men travelled from all over Europe to study there. By 1840, Edinburgh University was the leading medical school in Europe. In fact, at a time when England only had two universities (Oxford and Cambridge – the next oldest, Durham, wasn’t founded until 1832) Scotland had five (Glasgow, Edinburgh, St Andrews and Aberdeen alone had two – Kings College and Marischal College). The men at the heart of the Enlightenment went on to influence the American Revolution, modern economic theory and philosphy.
Scotland had a basic universal public education system in place well before England did and the Universities were more egalitarian and representative of society as a whole due to lower costs of attending.
Robert Owen was pioneering new workers’ conditions at New Lanark, the Scots regiments were the backbone of the Army and Scots were emigrating left and right, taking their knowledge and education with them.
Obviously there was still poverty and the cultural devastation of the Clearances had an impact of the land that is still in evidence today.
My point being, Scotland was far from the primitive backwater portrayed in historical romance. Neither is it the twee tartan cosiness often seen in contemporary books.
PS – like you, I am perfectly capable of “hearing” most accents in my head, so why can’t writers just use descriptions rather than mangle words in attempt to render it on the page. Also, the odd dialect word would help – Aye instead of yes etc – rather than the gobbledegook most writers come out with.
Well, you’ve sold me on reading this one and others in the series for sure. I was hoping that someone would have a comment on whether the way the first chapter is sketched in is because the plot bits are a carry over from a previous novel?
jcscot, you are my hero. AH! I love some me some factual history. 🙂
Taffgrrl, yay! I hope you like it as much as I did. You know, I didn’t consider that, but that is definitely a possibility — that the books are so intertwined that the weirdness and the “I’m missing something here”-ness of the beginning could have been due to the fact that it was a series, and maybe if I’d read others, I wouldn’t have been so lost. Goooood point.
TaffYgrrl. Sorry, typos galore today.