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3.75 AVERAGE
3.75 AVERAGE
Possibly the best historical romance of 2008, and I say that with confidence even though it's only January.
Bourne has an unerring eye for dialog and setting, and her characters spring to life on each page.
If you've stopped reading historicals because they all blend into a blur, read this book!
Bourne has an unerring eye for dialog and setting, and her characters spring to life on each page.
If you've stopped reading historicals because they all blend into a blur, read this book!
Edit after a re-read: LOLOLOL past self thinking consent was only dubious once. Consent is dubious at best throughout the book. This is definitely DubCon. But... I still enjoyed the story? IDK Clearly I am a terrible person.
This book was memorable enough that I feel like I can write decently about it 8 months later which, if you've read historical romance at all is definitely significant.
I picked this up despite its terrible cover because it was highly recommended by SBTB and they have a great review over there you should check out.
This book was compelling, interesting, and seemed to be super well researched. The setting felt real and the relationship that developed between the hero and heroine for the most part seemed very realistic and not based solely on looks/attraction. Conflict the characters faced in regards to the romance also was well drawn and compelling. (I really do recommend you just read the SBTB review, tbh.)
Two things that concerned me:
1) When we meet the heroine she is blind because of blunt force trauma to the head, about halfway through the book she recovers her sight. This is necessary to the plot for a variety of reasons but I want you to know going in that a "cure" occurs.
2) There was one moment where it felt to me personally like consent was pretty dubious.IIRC it's the first time the hero and heroine romantically pair. The heroine, as a spy for an opposing country/spy organization is kind of a captive in the HQ of the hero's spy organization and to me this left an imbalance of power that felt squicky. Furthermore there was, IIRC, a bit of "overpowering your better judgement with feelings" in the scene. Also a bathtub was involved and it all seemed very improbable, tbh.
Otherwise I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Those are my only real caveats. It's definitely steamy so you'll have to be o.k with that or have very strong skipping/skimming skills but if you're thinking about dipping your toes into Historical Romance but aren't sure you can stand the typical writing/plot, you could do a lot lot worse than this.
Original post:
I liked a lot of things about the plot of this book. There are a few things with representation and with the romance that I'm a little uncomfortable with/tentative towards?
More Thoughts later but DEFINITELY don't judge this book by it's cover. It's remarkably less trashy than the cover suggests.
Definitely using this as a book involving travel for the 2017 Pop Sugar Reading challenge since so much of this book is actually the main characters traveling by carriage, foot, mule, etc. across France and England.
This book was memorable enough that I feel like I can write decently about it 8 months later which, if you've read historical romance at all is definitely significant.
I picked this up despite its terrible cover because it was highly recommended by SBTB and they have a great review over there you should check out.
This book was compelling, interesting, and seemed to be super well researched. The setting felt real and the relationship that developed between the hero and heroine for the most part seemed very realistic and not based solely on looks/attraction. Conflict the characters faced in regards to the romance also was well drawn and compelling. (I really do recommend you just read the SBTB review, tbh.)
Two things that concerned me:
1) When we meet the heroine she is blind because of blunt force trauma to the head, about halfway through the book she recovers her sight. This is necessary to the plot for a variety of reasons but I want you to know going in that a "cure" occurs.
2) There was one moment where it felt to me personally like consent was pretty dubious.
Otherwise I wholeheartedly recommend this book. Those are my only real caveats. It's definitely steamy so you'll have to be o.k with that or have very strong skipping/skimming skills but if you're thinking about dipping your toes into Historical Romance but aren't sure you can stand the typical writing/plot, you could do a lot lot worse than this.
Original post:
I liked a lot of things about the plot of this book. There are a few things with representation and with the romance that I'm a little uncomfortable with/tentative towards?
More Thoughts later but DEFINITELY don't judge this book by it's cover. It's remarkably less trashy than the cover suggests.
Definitely using this as a book involving travel for the 2017 Pop Sugar Reading challenge since so much of this book is actually the main characters traveling by carriage, foot, mule, etc. across France and England.
