I liked this book much better then "The Ideal Bride". Arabella Swann was a fun if light hearted heroine and St. Fell was just darn sexy. Sure, people meet and are attracted right away but not necessarily love right away which is why I liked the fact that the author describes the theatre evening in terms of conversation. Nola and Garbriel were referred to in this story but frankly, I forgot who they were at first!! Hint to authors: if you are going to include previous couples from books already completed, a bit backgroup/review would be helpful. I do agree, however, that a Cit marrying a Duke, no matter how much money, would cause a stir and this could have been more realistically handled. It also would have been interesting to include an epilogue on them, especially since St. Fell felt sure they would have boys. I thought, perhaps, that there would be another sequel about Toby or Compton, but I read that the author is now working on contempory books, which is too bad. Interesting regency writers are getting rare these days. I did feel, though, that the author use of the maiden Aunt and St. Fell's Mom too much - they become annoying and a hinderence to the story.

I had many disappointments with this book after having high hopes. Another reviewer hit it on the head when saying it could have been great but missed and boy, does it. The subject is Anna, who at 13, has decided not to donate her kidney to her 16 year old sister, Kate, who has Leukemia. The real why is sort of a mish mash of Kate wanting to end her suffering (she was diagnosed at 2) and Anna, who loves her sister and wants to in a way set her and her sister free from the torture of medicine. It is Sara and Brian, the parents but especially Sara the Mom, who pushes for every possible chance to cure her daughter and really, who could blame her. The problem for me in this book was 1) the laywer, Brian, very lawyer slick. When he side swiped Anna with the court order to remove her from her family's home, what was he thinking, really? That that is what Anna wanted? Julia, too, was another problem. Geeze - they had a high school fling! Get over it already!!! For someone who is as smart as she is supposed to be, she is dumb with men and that was, frankly, a bore. THe dog thing went on to long and was no great mystery. The parents were more interesting but the author does not do them justice at the end. So the father finds release in a bottle after the loss of their daughter, after the author almost lets you think at the almost end, that the couple were finding their way back to each other, which would have been nice. So what happens to Sara after the death? Is this poor woman left to pick up now after both a sick daughter and a drunk husband? Jesse, what a loser. He starts fires and nearly kills a man and his Dad does what - nothing!!!! And since Jesse had this huge rap sheet, ah, I do not think he would have been accepted at any police academy. Cops can't have records. And which daughter dies was just stupid. To have it set up that way was a loser move. I would not recomend this book at all.

Meg Stanton-Lynch is an American granddaughter of a Duke. Justin St. James is a deadly handsome Earl with a ward named Emily and he had been banished from England for 6 years as everyone thought he killed his cousin's fiance. Well, of course he didn't and of course Meg knows this and wants to help Justin clear his name. But here is the vastly annoying part of the book - even after sleeping with Justin, she won't marry him. Her denying his proposal was about a 100 pages and it was about 90 pages too long. She loved him! She knew he liked her, appreciated her, needed her. So he did out outright say he loved her, well, it was unrealistic that she would continue to say no even after it was apparent that her refusal caused a rift in his relationship with Pen and her husband. She was childish and frankly uninteresting. Also, everytime she did something a tad out of the common way for an English gal, it was always, well, I'm an American!

I had picked up this book with high hopes but rather ended up being disappointed. Shouldn't Kevin's name really Damian (from The Omen)? Such a bad seed...I do not buy Eva's lack of bonding with him. I am not sure what she was suposed to bond with. There was not a single moment anywhere in the story where Kevin acted like a regular little boy. Not one moment of niceness anywhere. To say she rejected him when he rejected her breast, is trite. If as a baby he had moments of cuteness, I am sure she would have felt better about him, like she was with Celia, her daughter. Her husband, Franklin, was a big boob. His gee wiz Daddy-O routine was over the top and not believable. Also, Eva would have received some support from the community. After all, she found her daughter impaled on the arrow target and her husband murdered. I would have been interested in the aftermath of her discovering the bodies - who did she call, who came to investigate? What about that funeral? She says she called the victim's families to see if it would be okay for her to go what what her little' girls's or husband funerals? Also, why in the world would she devote Saturday's to Kevin? He murdered her little girl in such a barbaric way that how could you even want to talk to him, especially after the eye thing? Just because he is her son? Not reasonable. Kevin clearly was born with some misallignment in his brain, some defect, that the blame can not be Eva's alone.

This book was so bad I could not finish it. While I can applaud the auther in sort of trying to do something different, i.e. the fact that Eleanor Milford rejected Griffith's proposal not becuase she wanted to but because she wanted to see him do it again and again and again then finally say yes. Okay - so she was young but he goes off to join the war effort (gee, how noble) and returns 6 years later with a title inherited from his brother, who died. All this time he can not forget her. Please - yes, love is great but 6 years have gone by. She did, after all, reject him, so his I still lover her attitude was out of place. It would have worked better if she had to work at making him fall in love with her again. It is illogical that he would try to pretend interest in flakey cousin Priscilla just to get close to her.

My goodness - could this book have dragged anymore than it did? The pacing was too slow. Mariel was priggish, missish and out there pious which led her to be very judgemental, which was not a very nice characteristic in her. Edward seemed almost too slick to be likeable. So there you have it - neither was very easy to like therefore not an interesting story.

I have to admit to being disappointed in this story. It had all the makings for a terrific regency/historical love story but failed on many counts. Our heroine, Felicity Merriwether, got pregnant while engaged to be married to Captain Anthony Sheridan, but he left for Spain/France in the Army before knowing she was having a baby. When she wrote to him that she was with child and wanted to come join him, he apparently bled all over her letter so could not make out what she was writing about except that she wanted to come to Spain to join me so he told her to stay in England not knowing why she wanted to come to him instead of waiting. She thought he knew she was pregnant but did not care. Soon after he finds out she married someone else while engaged to him without telling him. Tony finally comes home 6 years later and she is a widow and he is involved in a murder investigation. There really is no sexual tension between them because she, Felicity, refuses to except or understand that Tony did not know she was pregnant. She basically refuses to except his story. Which does not really make any sense - didn't she love him at one time? Was he not trustworthy enough for her to lose her virginity to? Her husband is portrayed in the book at not being a nice guy but didn't he leave her son, Tony's son not his, his money knowing he was not really his son? He was not a noble with entailed lands - a Cit really - so he could do anything he wanted with his money. Might have made more sense for Tony to return to England with Felicity and her son Charles without any funds. The story of Diana/Meg was not that interesting either. Could have been fleshed out more. One of the reasons Felicity keeps giving in not marrying Tony now was that men can be dominating and she does not wish to be dominated and her fear is related to her marriage. Well, there are 2 women in the story who seem to have happy marriages indeed so Felicity can not be so stupid to believe all marriages were like hers.

I had looked forward to reading this regency. Regencies about older women and younger men are not very common in the regency circle. But it was terrible. When George, Lord Chadleigh, first spies Livy, she is stepping out of her bath looking oh-so-gorgeous. George was 17 and she would have been 25; ten years later, he is 27 and she 35 and no longer looking like his dream venus. When he first meets her, he is shocked at how much she looks like a dried up spinster. The romance between them does not work. She not only is dried up, but is rude to him - and bossy. If she had a great personality and was not so sour, maybe, but what was there about her that would would peak his interest? Nothing!!!! Also, George had promised his friend Bernard that he would be back to London in time to take him to a ball sponsored by the family of the girl Bernard likes and she him. Bernard is in a wheel chair so meeting women (he is homely as well) had been difficult. So why in the world would George willingly escort Livy home to Scotland when he was supposed to go home to London to help George get the the ball? Livy's carriage was coming to get her the next day and that would have sufficied to get her home. The cover also make Livy more attractive than she is. This story was just a bore which is too bad - great subject and I hope some other regency writer tries it too but with a better story

You know, I have been having trouble lately finding quality regency/historical novels to read. This one, with the plot of the famous marriage of convenince thing, was very annoying starting on page 22. Our hero, Colin Mandland, a war Colonel, buys a home from George, Rolalyn's cousin and real owner of the house she has been living in. Her father, the Earl, had died without a son of his own so the title and all that goes with it went to the cousin George. George sells the property to Colin legally. Colin goes to move into his new home and comes upon Rosalyn. The reality is that the deed was in Colin's possession as he showed her. Her companion also told her she recieved a letter from George that the companion forgot to give her so she goes and reads it that also lets her know George sold the property to Colin. The property was noot entailed. So all of this is legal; so what does she do? She slams the door on Colin for him to leave. So he goes to his brother, the vicar. Again, unreasonable actions on the part of the heroine seems to many writers and, unfortunately for me, too many readers equal with being entertaining, spunky or smart...which is too bad as it is annoying instead.

Gosh, I am starting to realize that all the good regency romances must have already been written. This story, focused on the oh so popular theme of a marriage of convenience, is almost unreadable. Our hero, a Duke named Lord Charnwood, marries the inspid and boring Elizabeth. He figures she won't give him trouble or be troubled by her. I hate when regency writers try to make the women spunky usually, it seems to me, to make up for them not being attractive so they suddenly appear more intersting to their mates. Of course, being a regency, they do not consumate their marriage. As we all know, then the marriage is not legal - even Elizabeth realized that. Charnwood is not likeable nor is Elizabeth. The author tries to spice things up with the addition of a first wife for Lord Charnwood, a gorgeous French woman whom he divorced. Apparently, Elizabeth nor her cronnies knew that the eligible Duke had been married once before. How would that be possible in the gossip capital of London where everything is knows about potential mates? Everything Elizabeth does she says well, Mama said this or Mama said that. Just Boring!!!!!!!!!!! This is one author I won't try reading again.