#forthcoming releases

[hellyeahcampusnovels]

what do we think, clique? exciting new dark campus fiction or uncomfortable exploitation of mental illness?

(i’m always v wary when it comes to dramatically announcing mental illnesses in descriptions of forthcoming releases but ofc i’m more curious than anything else so i am gonna read it!!)

[pollyssecretlibrary]

“A Duke Like No Other”, by Valerie Bowman

I was offered an e-ARC of this book by the kind people at St. Martin’s Press (@stmartinspress) . I read this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review

RELEASE DATE - MAY 1st

4 STARS/HEARTS/KITTEN/WHATEVER

This is the ninth book in the Playful Brides series.

When General Mark Grimaldi tries to get a promotion in his military career his superior tells him that he’s not an ideal candidate for the position he so much desires. The home secretary is looking for a family man, and he is a bachelor that has devoted his life to the wars and his career. But the truth is that Mark is actually married and has been for quite some time, but he is estranged from his wife Nicole.

He resolves to find her and make her come back with him, but Nicole isn’t an easy woman to deal with…

“Atalanta? Of course you would name your horse after a warrior woman who did nothing but cause her husband trouble” he says to her when they meet after ten years. To which she replies “What trouble? She merely did what she liked and was scorned for it”. In my opinion these quotes sum up their relationship, Atalanta’s story, or at least the way they summarize it here, is an accurate metaphor of their marriage.

Mark and Nicole have been married for ten years and three months, and they’ve been estranged for ten years. Mark didn’t tell Nicole that his mother’s family were the duke of Colchester’s because they weren’t on speaking terms, and Nicole didn’t tell Mark that she already knew. When two in a couple are spies or private investigators and you spy on each other you can’t expect your marriage to last long. This is why they fought and why Nicole settled in France and why Mark focused on his career. But of course none of them requested a divorce and none of them engaged in other relationships. In ten years.

Things get really interesting when, back in England, Mark learns that his cousin and heir to the duchy has been murdered and he has been appointed as the main investigator of the crime. He gathers all the suspects in the duke’s country home and thus starts a plot that would make Agatha Christie proud.

Mark’s and Nicole’s story is a complicated one. Mainly because they need to learn to trust each other. And they are both stubborn, so stubborn. The key of the problem is mainly that none of them think they are truly and sincerely in love, that their love is something real. They both feel lonely and they both are alone, even though they never stopped loving and worrying. The proof is the loyalty they’ve kept in ten years.

And we readers get to witness a heartbreaking story that will end in a happily ever after, but this is a romance, we know we are going to get that HEA eventually. The important question is how we are going to get that ending. The road to the HEA will be fun sometimes, because their fights are real battles of the wits (I love when writers include such conversations) and sometimes they feel so ridiculous and yet so real. But there were other facts that I did like about this book, There could be spoilers ahead.

THINGS THAT I LIKED

-          Nicole has a job. Actually Nicole has had two jobs; the first as a, say, private investigator for the Bow Street Runners (officially they couldn’t hire women) that received bounties instead of a salary. After that she was hired as a spy in France by the War Office. Nicole is an independent woman who earns her own money and doesn’t touch a penny from the allowance she receives from Mark. She doesn’t need her husband’s support. Neither does she want it, needless to say.

-          Nicole dresses as a man when her missions require she does so. And she does the same when she’s riding her horses.

-          What made Mark fall in love with Nicole is that she’s uncommon. She’s not the perfect little woman/wife. She’s not obedient and she’s not tamed (she isn’t a savage either). She’s outspoken, brilliant and she stands for herself. She doesn’t need his protection all the time.

-          I loved the flashbacks. I love that both Mark and Nicole get carried away by their memories often so we get to know what happened in those three months of real marriage they had at the beginning. Bowman doesn’t summarize these events like most writers do; she gives us the real scenes. They’re so well done in terms of timing that they enrich the narration instead of giving us the feeling of too much information.

-          Mark’s ten years wanking while thinking of Nicole. Now that was unexpected. He didn’t get any lovers or mistresses. He and his hand knew one another well. You would expect that faithfulness from a woman but not so much from a man.

-          When they’re not arguing about the state of their marriage Mark and Nicole are really nice. Mark listens to Nicole and asks her for advice and opinion.

-          No virgin pain (this happens in a flashback). The fact that she had expected pain because that’s what mama told her made Nicole so confused that Mark got to explain that when a woman feels pain it’s due the fact that the man doesn’t really know what he’s doing. THIS. Please, standing ovation.

-          Female friendship. Nicole and Mark’s cousin Regina are friends, though not very close until they become partners in solving crimes at the duke’s estate. These two’s companionship was fun to read, especially when Regina, who’s a spinster, falls in lust with Regina’s former boss and the two friends’ conversations turn out to be about men with handcuffs and… pistols.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE

Before going into detail I want to clarify that in my opinion all of the following points were intentional and even though I didn’t like these facts, I think they served their purpose well, so these are negative points for me, not for the book.

-          Mark sometimes was an asshole and I wanted to beat him senseless.

-          Mark was so contrary. One minute he said yes, the next he said no. He was confusing often. Like, he didn’t know what he wanted.

-          When Mark thinks that Nicole’s condition to his request will be divorce he almost immediately thinks about worst case scenario… for his career. He’s already worried about how a divorce will affect his political ambitions.

-          When Nicole says she wants a baby and that she doesn’t expect him to be around when the baby comes he says, literally: “what kind of monster do you take me to be?”. I don’t know Mark, you don’t really want a baby, you are calculating the impact of things on your career, you left her to her own devices for ten years… do you want me to give you further explanation?

-          When they are investigating the crime and the runner from Bow Street tells Mark that Nicole could really help Mark says no because he’s afraid of putting her in danger. But then Regina and Nicole start questioning people in casual conversations thus conducting their own investigation, when they explain their theories to the men… Mark is OK with the women investigating… This is not really a bad thing but, really, Mark needs to get himself together.

[pollyssecretlibrary]

The Secret of Flirting, Sabrina Jeffries (pub date March 27th) 

 Happy St. Valentines Day!

[pollyssecretlibrary]

“The Rogue Is Back in Town”, by Anna Bennett

I read this book from NetGalley in exchange for a fair review

RELEASE DATE - JANUARY 2nd

5 STARS/HEARTS/KITTEN/WHATEVER

This is the third and final book in the Wayward Wallflowers series after My Brown-Eyed Earl and I Dared the Duke

By order of his brother, the marquess, Samuel must evict Juliette and her uncle from their home or he will be thrown out to the streets and have his allowances cut off for being a rake and a disgrace. But Juliette is willing to fight for her rights and won’t give up. This is a story of fight at first sight, but she doesn’t know that he’s only the messenger; the ruthless marquess whom she kissed once at a party is the one to blame.

Julie lives with her uncle Alastair who suffers from (I suspect) early stages of senile dementia. She needs proof that Sam’s brother is the actual owner of the house they live in so she demands that the brothers show said proof. In the meanwhile she won’t tell her uncle and be a cause of distraught. Julie is very protective of her uncle, but with her sisters unavailable at the moment, she is very much alone.

Sam realizes that it would be better if Julie and himself worked together for the common good, that they both would have a place to live in. For the time being he asks her to give him shelter for he has nowhere to go. Of course she doesn’t know about this fact so he convinces her to live in the same house. Little does he know that this is the first step to his own reformation. His days as a rogue are over.

So Julie finds a way for Sam to live with them without having brows raised at them, he will be uncle Alastair’s assistant and will help him organize his work in order to present it before the Royal Society of Sciences. It is the work of a lifetime so the task will be neither easy nor short-lived.

Julie and Sam’s brother, Nigel, had that one kiss once, and she felt quite overwhelmed by it, but he never called on her afterwards… how will he react when he knows that he is about to have that woman out on the streets? Her wrath will fall onto him when they meet again! Will Sam get the blow just by standing in the middle of them?

This is also a story of two men wearing masks, the elder brother has a perfect mask and the younger wears the face of a rogue, a rake, someone who you wouldn’t trust at first sights. But the thing with masks is that they hide the real faces, none of them is what they seem. And it will be up to Juliette to describe truth from fake. And the reader will do the same along with her. But probably just as with our lovely, fierce, strong Julie, we will see the truth at first sight, what will be the task then? She and we will have to demonstrate that we were right from the beginning.

Although the year is not over yet I think I can say that this was for me one of the best new historical romance novels of the year. It’s not the best but it comes as close as it can. It is not only an incredibly beautifully written sweet love story between a man and a woman, but also a story about love for what it is important in life, the family. Juliette has a family she wants to protect at all costs; Sam’s family, his only brother, is estranged and severed and he longs to make peace just because he promised his late father, and because he’s alone in the World. This is important because it’s both their strength and their weakness, and unless they consider themselves a family, they won’t be able to create one.

The bed scenes are sweet and sexy but I must remark the almost-first-kiss. It is one of the best and sexiest almost-first-kisses I’ve ever read about; usually they would make me feel frustrated (as one or both the characters would feel) and wanting more, but it left me wanting more though not frustrated. That isn’t an easy thing to achieve. And the other particular thing I must remark is the fact that the male character realizes his feelings earlier than expected and before his female counterpart does, although of course the feelings were there from almost the beginning. But having a man’s feelings so sure and decided so early, when usually he would be confused for many chapters, is something that I find pleasantly refreshing.

Sam was my favourite character. I loved Julie and uncle Alastair very much, don’t get me wrong. But I felt a connection with Sam almost immediately. Perhaps it is because his brother had him kicked out of their home like a dog in the first chapter and from then he begins his path to redemption. But I did love him, and I did want to protect him. He had so much to deal with and it would mean a revisit of his own past and the reasons why he’s a rogue, how did he end up like this. Given that past he should have been careless and cold and hard hearted but instead he’s caring, lovely and supportive to the last breathe, you only have to look at how he helps uncle Alastair in his endeavours when everyone says he’s a madman. And he supports Julie despite the fact that at some point it seems that she’s chosen his brother...

I could go on forever commenting the different things that I liked about this novel but instead I prefer to get myself all of Anna Bennett’s books and read them.

Oh, and there’s one thing, or rather one person I really hated and that was Nigel. I hated him so much that I think he was perfect as a ruthless antagonist/nemesis. So just because of that I should like him but I loathe him instead, and I can’t help it. Aunt Elspeth would approve.

[pollyssecretlibrary]

Uhm... @notsomolly send help!!!

[pollyssecretlibrary]

Twelfth Night With the Earl by Anna Bradley was my favourite Christmas story this year, it was that good. 

So when Netgalley offered More or Less a Marchioness, a book that is the first of a new trilogy (the Somerset Sisters series) I decided to request it.

It will also be the last romance review for the moment as there is nothing new on offer really. Unless you’d like me to share my thoughts on books that are already released. This one will be published on Feb6, 2018

blurb:

The Somerset sisters, three beautiful, headstrong debutantes in Regency London, are discovering that a bit of scandal is a delightful thing …

For the sake of propriety, and her younger sisters’ reputations, Iris Somerset has kept her rebellious streak locked away. But though she receives a proposal from Phineas Knight, Lord of Huntington, Iris can’t marry a man she knows isn’t truly enamored with her. In fact, Iris no longer wants to be chosen - she wants to choose. Under the clandestine tutelage of “wicked widow” Lady Annabel Tallant, she’ll learn how to steer her own marriage prospects - and discover her secret appetites …

What kind of debutante refuses a marquess? Finn is surprised, a little chastened - and thoroughly intrigued. This new, independent version of Iris is far more alluring than the polished socialite she used to be. Finn believed he needed a safe, quiet wife to curb his wilder impulses. But the more Iris surprises him, the more impossible it becomes to resist their deepest desires …

[pollyssecretlibrary]

Girl takes advantage of a moment of confusion at the club to hire herself as bookkeeper

by taking the books to the farthest room when no one’s looking

The Heiress Deception, Christy Caldwell will be published on Dec12th

[pollyssecretlibrary]

Give me a sign Juliette. Or tell me to go. But don't torture me like this

Sam

The Rogue is Back in Town, Anna Bennett

I should tell you that he realizes that he’s in love when I’m 56% through this novel (kindle won’t say the page number), it’s way before the last chapters and that isn’t frequent. I’m enjoying this novel so much. I adore Sam, I simply do.