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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Gavin asks Christabel how she got such a fanciful name, and this caught me off guard.
Fanciful? Christabel? According to the baby name websites I searched, it means "Beautiful Christian" or something along those lines. But Christabel is a medieval name, and during the Georgian/Regency eras medieval romances were quite popular, and "Christabel" as a name took off after Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name. The timelines don't quite match up, as the first part of Christabel was released in 1797, and this Christabel is 30 years old in 1815. It's amazing how the way we perceive names changes, because "Christabel," to me, is the name of a haunted porcelain doll, not a person.
Anyways please excuse the detour! Gavin Byrne is Prinny's unacknowledged bastard, and Christabel is a widow and reluctant marchioness. Prinny conscripts Christabel into helping him retrieve letters that are both damning to him and to Christabel's father. She has to infiltrate the houseparty of the known cardsharp Lord Stokely, and she needs Gavin's help to get an invite.
Gavin is tiresome. He works his way through mistresses, and they are conveniently quite awful so you don't dwell on the fact that Gavin is rather careless with them. Christabel is different though. She's not that type of girl. And lo, Gavin is reformed by Christabel.
Both characters have likeable moments, but it's outweighed by the more frequent moments where I caught second-hand embarrassment. I wouldn't trust them with your letters, Prinny!
Fanciful? Christabel? According to the baby name websites I searched, it means "Beautiful Christian" or something along those lines. But Christabel is a medieval name, and during the Georgian/Regency eras medieval romances were quite popular, and "Christabel" as a name took off after Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem of the same name. The timelines don't quite match up, as the first part of Christabel was released in 1797, and this Christabel is 30 years old in 1815. It's amazing how the way we perceive names changes, because "Christabel," to me, is the name of a haunted porcelain doll, not a person.
Anyways please excuse the detour! Gavin Byrne is Prinny's unacknowledged bastard, and Christabel is a widow and reluctant marchioness. Prinny conscripts Christabel into helping him retrieve letters that are both damning to him and to Christabel's father. She has to infiltrate the houseparty of the known cardsharp Lord Stokely, and she needs Gavin's help to get an invite.
Gavin is tiresome. He works his way through mistresses, and they are conveniently quite awful so you don't dwell on the fact that Gavin is rather careless with them. Christabel is different though. She's not that type of girl. And lo, Gavin is reformed by Christabel.
Both characters have likeable moments, but it's outweighed by the more frequent moments where I caught second-hand embarrassment. I wouldn't trust them with your letters, Prinny!
After waiting months for this one to arrive, I finally managed to finish off this series! I think this was probably my least favourite in the series, mostly because I'm not super fussed on Gavin compared to his brothers. But the plot was interesting and different to others I've read, so there's that.
I rage quit at 83% before coming back to finish this two days later, but overall it's a big thumbs up from me. I thought Gavin and Christabel were excellently matched. It's a bit of a trend in the Sabrina Jeffries I've read that the men are all emotionally scarred and it takes the love of a good woman to shake their problems into perspective. Unfortunately that does happen in this (hence the rage quit) but there's also an excellent scene nearer to the beginning where Gavin teaches Christabel how to play cards. Gavin has this calm, ruthless reputation which is almost the opposite of Christabel's short temper and passionate determination. (Obviously both of them are equally stubborn.) When he teaches her how to play cards, he's also encouraging her to rein in her emotion and, in a way, to understand him. I suppose it's vice versa when Christabel's compassion and good sense convinces Gavin not to go off on a destructive rampage — it's just that the nurturing woman trope always rubs me up the wrong way. Otherwise though I was very convinced by their relationship and its steady progression from trading antagonistic barbs to HEA.
Special mention goes to the excellently written feminist rage that Gavin feels upon seeing his old lover with her husband.
Though I do wish Gavin didn't keep calling her 'lass' and 'my sweet'. 'My sweet' in particular has a creepy vibe that should be well avoided.
Also, three cheers for a consistently good HR series! With the exception of Caroline Linden's Reece Family Trilogy, I can't think of a single other HR series that has been so solidly enjoyable. Perhaps Lisa Kleypas's Wallflowers series too? Though [b: Again the Magic|674220|Again the Magic (Wallflowers, #0.5)|Lisa Kleypas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418771403s/674220.jpg|541254] was a bit dodgy. Oh and Julia Quinn's Agents of the Crown duo is very good too. But to bring it back to the book I'm reviewing, I really enjoyed the brotherhood thing at the centre of this series and I live for the reappearance of characters from previous books. I hear this is linked to the School for Heiresses series, though I've read the first one there and approach the second with not a little trepidation. Anyway the Royal Brotherhood series is consistently good — it gets better with each book, in fact.
I'm teetering on the edge of giving this four stars, even though I'm of the mind that star ratings are pretty insignificant. There is a great deal to like about this: likeable characters, a solid romance development, a non-romance plot thread with the right amount of interesting and consistently sardonic humour. I'm a bit tired of Gavin's "I don't have any goodness in my heart" alpha male bullshit, but even that is pummelled by Christabel who later on declares he's ridiculous. This has my heartfelt recommendation.
Special mention goes to the excellently written feminist rage that Gavin feels upon seeing his old lover with her husband.
Suddenly he was tired of the waste, tired of watching women suffer from their husbands' neglect. He was tired of seeing once-hopeful young females turned into coldhearted, dissipated bitches whose only choices were to pine away at home or life the same reckless lives as their husbands.I've discussed modern attitudes in historical romance a lot recently, and it's not always been praise. This moment though, where Gavin — who in fact benefits twofold from gambling husbands and their (sexually) dissatisfied wives — effectively snaps, is utterly believable. He doesn't hold any large scale ideas about women's emancipation, but he sees the problem up close, from his position as a gaming hell owner: that women are under their husbands' power, and if they're unlucky, it is a terrible thing. This, I think, is the way to write modern attitudes into historical romance: not by having characters grandly declare manifestos for change, but by showing their own experience with injustice blowing over into frustration. Isn't that how all social movements start anyway? Through anger?
He was tired of watching good women forced to extreme behaviour because of their gambling husbands' foolish actions. Women like Christabel.
Though I do wish Gavin didn't keep calling her 'lass' and 'my sweet'. 'My sweet' in particular has a creepy vibe that should be well avoided.
Also, three cheers for a consistently good HR series! With the exception of Caroline Linden's Reece Family Trilogy, I can't think of a single other HR series that has been so solidly enjoyable. Perhaps Lisa Kleypas's Wallflowers series too? Though [b: Again the Magic|674220|Again the Magic (Wallflowers, #0.5)|Lisa Kleypas|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1418771403s/674220.jpg|541254] was a bit dodgy. Oh and Julia Quinn's Agents of the Crown duo is very good too. But to bring it back to the book I'm reviewing, I really enjoyed the brotherhood thing at the centre of this series and I live for the reappearance of characters from previous books. I hear this is linked to the School for Heiresses series, though I've read the first one there and approach the second with not a little trepidation. Anyway the Royal Brotherhood series is consistently good — it gets better with each book, in fact.
I'm teetering on the edge of giving this four stars, even though I'm of the mind that star ratings are pretty insignificant. There is a great deal to like about this: likeable characters, a solid romance development, a non-romance plot thread with the right amount of interesting and consistently sardonic humour. I'm a bit tired of Gavin's "I don't have any goodness in my heart" alpha male bullshit, but even that is pummelled by Christabel who later on declares he's ridiculous. This has my heartfelt recommendation.