Reviews

I Kissed an Earl by Julie Anne Long

abbythompson's review

3.0

I do love a ship-board romance, but this one fell a little flat for me. Mostly because I found the heroine difficult to like. Violet was spoiled, arrogant, haughty ... and while she comes down a peg or two and learns to be useful and have purpose, I just didn't like her or feel as deeply connected to her as I did to previous heroines in this series. Eh, can't love 'em all.

Now the hero on the other hand, the newly styled Earl of Ardmay, is all that's manly, wind-swept and honor-bound. So much so that he seemed two dimensional at times. It was hard to separate him out from those clinch covers from the 80s with Fabio or some other muscle-bound hunk with a shirt half undone, hair blowing in the wind, clutching rope in one and and the heroine in the other. Bit too cartoony for me. And a bit too close to the hate-f***ing/rapey heroes found in the Old Skool romances.

The best part of this book is that is FINALLY makes some BIG revelations about the missing Lyon Redmond. Wow. No spoilers here, but I am so much more intrigued by the mystery now. Olivia and Lyon's book, when it happen, is going to be a SCORCHER. I have complete faith in Julie Anne Long.

hopevollm's review

adventurous emotional lighthearted slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

The high seas romance I didn’t know I needed. I loved Violet and Flint.

overflowingshelf's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

CW: Slavery; racism; violence; pregnancy

Who thought peeling a potato could be so fraught with sexual tension? Seriously. 

I adored I Kissed An Earl, the fourth book in Julie Anne Long’s Pennyroyal Green series. This book had a little bit of everything. You have forced proximity, pirates, enemies-to-lovers, adventures on the high sea and sexy potato peeling. What is not to like?

The new Earl of Ardmay, also known as Captain Asher Flint, is on a mission to capture a pirate known as Le Chet. When forced to attend a ball, he runs into a man who looks shockingly like the notorious pirate. The man happens to be Violet Redmond’s brother Jonathan, giving her a clue about the fate of her missing older brother Lyon. As Captain Flint heads back out to sea to track down Le Chet, Violet sneaks on board his ship to uncover what Lyon Redmond is up to and prove his innocence. However, she finds herself constantly butting heads with Captain Flint, who is tasked with bringing her brother to justice. 

This book was dripping in sexual tension. Like seriously, dripping. I was dying every time Violet and Flint were together as all I wanted them to do was kiss already. The fact that they were trapped on a boat at sea and couldn’t escape each other definitely helped ramp up the tension. If you liked forced proximity, this was an A+ execution of the trope. There’s also a hint of enemies-to-lovers in there, as they are constantly engaging in a battle of wills, especially as Violet believes Flint is hunting her brother. That puts her in a sticky situation as she wants to be with Flint and wants to protect her brother. This book is also an excellent slow build as it takes a while for Violet and Flint to do the deed. Still, there are enough moments of fraught sexual tension, including a sexy potato peeling scene (seriously!), some fantastic kissing scenes and some excellent finger banging to tide you over. 

Part of the reason the romance was so good in this book is because of the characters. I absolutely adored both Violet and Captain Flint. Violet surprised me as she’s always been known for her antics in society, but she’s driven by boredom more than anything. But her devotion to her brother Lyon – and the chance she can find him after his disappearance – sets her on a journey where she takes wild risks, all for the people she loves. Violet’s incredibly smart and has more backbone than anyone gives her credit for. I adored her as she was such a strong, well-rounded character. 

Captain Flint was the perfect match and a worthy adversary for Violet. He pushes her buttons in all the right ways, sees her intelligence and challenges her in ways she didn’t expect. Despite being an Earl, a title recently given to him by the Crown, he’s an outsider in society. Everyone knows he doesn’t fit in with the traditional nobility, and they call him “Savage” because of his parentage. He’s much more at home on his ship and he’s very good at what he does as a privateer in hunting down the pirate Le Chet. He’s a bit arrogant and leans a bit more into some masculine traits than I usually like, but all the pieces worked together. He also broods, but he broods so well.

Outside the characters and the romance, I adored the plot of this one. We’ve heard mention of the missing Lyon Redmond previously, and we finally get more details about him! I loved Violet’s devotion to her brother’s innocence – and it turns out she was right. We meet Lyon for the first time in this book, and I cannot wait to get his full story as it’s clearly full of heartache, pain and redemption. While I guessed what was going on pretty early in the book with Le Chet and his motivation for going after certain ships, it was still satisfying to see everything come together.

While I’m not done reading the Pennyroyal Green series, this book is up there with Like No Other Lover as one of my favorites. I was fully hooked on the story and stayed up way too late reading it multiple nights. And that SEXUAL TENSION! No one delivers on the emotions quite like Julie Anne Long. I highly recommend you pick this one up, as it was truly delightful. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Slavery and Racism

Moderate: Violence

Minor: Pregnancy

mdexter's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional inspiring mysterious reflective tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

slimikin's review

3.0

A decent story, but I honestly don't think I've ever read such a poorly edited book in my entire life. Missing words. Misspelled words. Phrases like "the teapot pot" and "through him through." Commas lacking in places where commas desperately needed to be. Weird italics. This isn't the typical Julie Anne Long experience, and I'm hoping the next novel in the series isn't quite such an exercise in confusion.

malumbra's review

3.0

2.5.

codexmendoza's review

2.0

So actually the heroine of the novel has an amazing personality (like many of Long's heroines) and of the ones I've read this is the only one with a POC lead (the hero is half-Native American) but unfortunately this book is just full of unremitting white people fuckery. There are a lot of reviews praising the good parts of this book and I agree with many of them, I think if aforementioned fuckery hadn't happened I would have rated this like a 4ish. Unfortunately, in a parallel to this election some fuckshit happens in this book and I can't wait for people to tell me I'm overreacting. Details under the spoiler.

Spoiler

So the hero is half native and she calls him a savage more than one time. She claims to not know that he's biracial but come on, people don't whip out coded language like "savage" after seeing a milky white dude, no matter how tan he is or buff his thighs. Caveat: she later backpedals (but never really apologizes). But like the whole vibe I got from this is that he became human to her after she decided she was attracted to him. To quote Bim Adewunmi: "We can't fuck ourselves to equality."

So the hero has a former mistress who is nonwhite and the heroine has never met her, but mentally refers to the woman as being "dusky" multiple times. Because apparently being brown means it has to be constantly brought up as her only character trait and also there exists only one adjective to describe her. This woman never shows up, is discarded and also has no characterization. Also she's a courtesan because of course.

Also uhh it turned out that the entire time the brother she's looking for is trying to squash a slave ring literally for fucking personal development. (He actually cites something his True Love says about how he's never done anything meaningful in his life as his reason for embarking on this quest.) And also because his True Love is against slavery (she hands out pamphlets because lmao white allies) but her father is one of the investors and apparently instead of just exposing him and having him fucking ARRESTED BECAUSE THIS MAN ENSLAVED PEOPLE, he's like "I'm just going to sink all the slave ships so she never knows." It makes me so furious that the actual historical pain and suffering of black people is used in this way while there are no black characters except for the aforementioned mistress who really deserves reparations. (Also, I refuse to read the last book about this guy, but according to reviews, none of this stops him for like, fucking his way through the high seas while his True Love awaits him chastely.)

I like Julie Ann Long, I like her characters and generally the most troubling thing about her books is that there's a marked lack of female friendship, but what the fuck.

lausol's review

5.0

I LOVED THIS BOOK. I thought the relationship between both characters was really well developed and felt organic and well paced. I could feel their care, love and RESPECT for each other so vividly. I loved both characters. I loved how honest they were with each other and how they admitted and accepted they had to take harsh decitions but respected each other even through them and tried to hurt the other in the less possible way they could. I also liked that they understood each other so well and understood parts of the other nobody else had ever taken the time and work to see and shine a light on. They really felt like they were the perfect match for each other. I really, really loved this book.
2021 re-read: I love this book so much, Julie Anne Long is such a good writer and books 4 and 5 of this series are my favourite books (even though I do love books 6 and 8 A LOT). I'm still super into Violet and Asher's dynamic and the way they just understand each other and are so protective and in awe of the other while just seeing the other person so clearly. The only thing I can sort of complain about is that I liked Lyon way more in this book that on his own book.

sungmemoonstruck's review

3.0

3.5 stars
I love Long's evocative writing style and her balance of wit and drama but I felt like the characters in this one weren't quite as memorable as in the other books I've read by her. While I mostly really liked Violet, despite her occasional disastrous (if very in character) decisions, the hero veered dangerously close to the somewhat tired self-made alpha male type, despite his redeeming moment at the end of the book.

mskennedyreads's review

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

VERY angsty. I liked the premise and the second half a lot.