C+
Genre: Historical: European, Novella, Romance
This RITA® Reader Challenge 2015 review was written by Elizabeth W. This story was nominated for the RITA® in the Romance Novella category.
The summary:
William Graves is the last of Feagan’s scoundrels. A onetime grave robber turned royal physician, he has devoted his life to saving others—because he knows there is no way to save himself. Especially not around a lady like Winnie. Though undeserving of her touch, he cannot resist. His passion cannot be tamed…even in the face of certain danger.
Winnie, the Duchess of Avendale, never knew peace until her brutal husband died. With William she’s discovered burning desire—and the healing power of love. But now, confronted by the past she thought she’d left behind, Winnie must face her fears…or risk losing the one man who can fulfill all her dreams.
Here is Elizabeth W.'s review:
This story could have made an excellent full length novel. The tale begins with a two page journal entry written by the hero detailing his entire backstory. If this was a novel, it would have taken chapters but to keep the page count down the author tells us everything we need to know about him in 3 pages. Starting a book off by showing not telling tends to drive me crazy.
Our heroine, the Duchess of Avendale, is a widow who has slowly recovered over the last three years from a marriage to an absolute brute who victimized her physically and emotionally. The hero, William Graves, is a doctor who was raised alongside several of the “scoundrels” who run in her social circle and has a mysterious connection to her husband’s demise that is hinted at throughout the novel.
As the story unfolds, the Duchess believes she’s either going crazy or someone is trying to make her believe that she is. William knows more about these incidents than he can share because he’s sworn an oath to his fellow “scoundrels” to hide what they’d done to protect the Duchess. Instead, he inveigles himself into her life to protect her and finds himself torn about how much he can reveal to her.
Selecting a novella to review may not have been my best idea as I have very mixed feelings about the format. Occasionally I find the rare gem I love, but too often, it feels like that in an attempt to fill out the story of secondary characters, important steps in their emotional journey are skipped. Readers with similar unease may not enjoy this tale. To me, there’s so much more that could have been explored such as the emotional development of the Duchess as she moves from a loveless and abusive marriage to someone in her social class to a loving relationship with a commoner. More time could have been spent on how learning the truth from William impacted their relationship. I’m surprised she wasn’t a little more ticked-off at him. In sum, the story was intriguing and enjoyable but I wish the conflict and romance had been better developed.
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I always wonder what makes an author chose throw a novella into a series of full length books. Why is a particular character given the short format, when fans of the books would obviously snap up another full length novel?
Thanks for the review Elizabeth.
@DonnaMarie: My knee-jerk reaction is to think it’s because the author wasn’t interested enough in the character(s) to do anything more… which makes it hard to be very interested myself!
But there are exceptions. I’m thinking of Courtney Milan. “The Governess Affair” was the perfect lead-in to the series that followed, and perfectly proportioned. Also “A Kiss in Midwinter” in the middle of that series– there was perhaps not enough conflict there to sustain 300 pages, but what there was was lovely– a perfect mix of fitting the series and able to stand on its own, and the right length for its independent content.
But I’m with you and the reviewer on wondering more about the hows/whys of novellas in general… esp. when so many don’t satisfy.
::shrug::
Thanks for the review, Elizabeth W.!
@Janeish, you mentioned a writer who excels in this format. The Governess Affair perfectly peeks our curiosity for the Brothers Sinister while telling a compelling story. She may have just been doodling with characters she liked when she wrote A Kiss for Midwinter, but cares enough to make it a good story. She’s not appeasing curiosity from readers which I think generates a few of these shorter stories (IMHO) about characters the writer isn’t interested in pursuing.
I think maybe Heath felt so much of the hero and heroine’s story was told throughout Scoundrels of St. James series that she thought it only warranted a novella. I would have preferred a full-length book even with reading the other series. I kept waiting for William’s book and only got this. It was disappointing. It was nice to get something but it was more of a companion piece to both the previously mentioned series and her latest book in which the hero is the son of the heroine in this novella than a stand-alone story.