Stud Club Trilogy :: Tessa Dare

I swear, I'm taking a romance novel break after this. Too much!

Titles: One Dance with a Duke, Twice Tempted by a Rogue, Three Nights with a Scoundrel

Author: Tessa Dare

Read: NYC (9/10 - 10/10)

Format: Mass market paperback, kindle

After I was disappointed in my first romance novel excursion (Nora Robert's Honest Illusions), someone suggested I read the first book of this trilogy. She had read about it on Jezebel and said it would be more like a 'traditional' romance novel and that it might be a better representation of The Genre. I'm glad to say it was.

The ridiculously named Stud Club consists of three guys who haggle over breeding with a fancy old racehorse: Spencer (Duke), Rhys (Rogue), and Julian (Scoundrel).

In the excellent One Dance with a Duke, the agoraphobic and stern Spencer falls in love with Amelia (headstrong, individualistic, approaching spinsterhood). After whisking her out of a ball, they spend an entire night trying to find out what happened to the just-murdered Leo (also of the stud club). Spencer and Amelia are both way into each other and proud. After some ups and downs and intrigue they finally figure it out and commence with the unbridled passion and whatnot.

Rhys St. Maur returns to his ancestral home in Twice Tempted by a Rogue. Racked with guilt over a childhood mishap, Rhys spends the better part of his life (and the war) trying to meet his own demise. When he goes back home he falls in love-at-first-sight with the widowed local innkeeper. It turns out they knew each other as children and that she's carried a torch for him for decades. He wants to prove to her that he loves her and that it's not just guilt and a sense of duty that keep him nearby. They both eventually come clean about their fears and motivations and have a bunch of sex.

Three Nights with a Scoundrel focuses on Julian Bellamy who (a) is obsessed with uncovering what happened the night of his BFF Leo Chatwick's murder, (b) is in love with Leo's deaf twin sister Lily, and (c) is LEADING A DOUBLE LIFE. Unlike Rhys and Spencer, Julian is lowborn and thinks himself unworthy of Lily. Of course, she loves him anyway, but is turned off by the danger he constantly puts himself through (trying to solve her brother's murder). When the truth behind Leo's murder comes out, it was genuinely surprising, even if it wasn't so artfully executed. Eventually, everyone ends up knowing the whole truth about every possible thing and lots of love and thrusting and - eventually - children result.

In order of goodness, I'd say the Stud Trilogy goes Duke, Scoundrel, Rogue. But, like Dare's other trilogy (you remember, the Sirens), you can probably stop after the gripping first installment. One Dance with a Duke had a familiar story - sort of a saucy revision of Pride and Prejudice, but with horses. The romance element was very sweet and I was genuinely interested in how these two characters would end up together. Maybe by the time I got to the other two novels I was desensitized to overblown romance, but they really just weren't as engrossing.

I did learn two interesting things from the Stud Club:

- Hessians are boots and all fancy men wear them

- Stays and corsets are basically the same

All in all, excellent reading if you have a kindle (or no shame) and a wide expanse of beach.

One Dance with a Duke:

4 out of 5 stars

Twice Tempted by a Rogue:

3 out of 5 stars

Three Nights with a Scoundrel:

3 out of 5 stars

This concludes the great romance novel trial of 2010. Final verdict: I get the appeal and - clearly - how one book can snowball into a whole series/author obsession. But I think I'll probably read them sparingly from now on. And only when the main characters don't like each other at first as that always proves more entertaining.

Until next year, ripped bodices!

Surrender of a Siren, A Lady of Persuasion :: Tessa Dare

Titles: Surrender of a Siren, A Lady of Persuasion

Author: Tessa Dare

Read: NYC

Format: Kindle (secret shame)

These two romances follow the excellent 'Goddess of the Hunt' to round out Tessa Dare's 'Siren trilogy'. Each novel focuses on the romantic pursuits of a secondary female character from the preceding title. Both are readable and fast, but neither has the oomph of the franchise's starter.

Surrender of a Siren opens with the runaway Sophia - disguised as lowly governess Jane - trying to buy passage onto a ship bound for Tortola. She has recently run away from what promised to be a suitable, but flat, marriage to Sir Toby Aldridge. However, once she realizes that her dowry was hers to inherit, marriage or no, she knows she can't marry for anything less than passion. So, she takes a wad of cash and flees to Tortola. On her voyage, she falls for the roguish and handsome Gray, the ship's owner and former privateer (that's fancy for pirate). Lust. Passion. Steam. Love. When they get to Tortola and Sophia's truth is uncovered, will Gray love her still, knowing that their relationship was founded on lies?

Of course! Duh.

Isabel (Bel) Grayson, Gray's young half-sister, is at the center of the trilogy's final - and weakest - installment. Unlike Sophia or Lucy, Isabel doesn't want to marry for love or passion. She's a do-gooder and wants to marry someone who will elevate her standing to 'Lady of Influence". Like all the ladies of London, Bel gets the hots for Toby (of pursued-by-Lucy and jilted-by-Sophia fame). He, too, is swept away by Bel's exotic, curvaceous beauty. When she learns he is able to run for Parliament, she agrees to marry him. They have an insatiable appetite for one another, but Bel has control issues or something. So, while poor, stupid Toby loves her, she won't allow herself to love him in return. Until she just kind of realizes she does and is also, oh-joyously, pregnant. Also in this novel: Toby's mom loves their neighbor and Lucy's galpal/personal physician falls for Bel's half-African, brother-from-another-mother Josiah. Too much!

All in all, I think the Siren trilogy hit its peak at the end of book one. I mean, Surrender of a Siren was fine, but I don't enthusiastically recommend it. I think for those who are not committed to The Genre (like me), a novel from this category has to be extra trashy or extra romantic or extra cheesy to be worthwhile. Surrender was not extra anything. But it was a little of all of those things; enough to still be embarrassing.

A Lady of Persuasion, I'd say, was squarely bad. It was steamy at times, but never satisfyingly romantic. And in her 'ambitious' subplots, I think Dare was making an effort to veer away from cheesy and towards legit, which I think was a mistake. Stick with what you know, you know what I mean? Another thing about 'A Lady' is that Bel was a terrible heroine. She is unsympathetically rigid and while Dare explains some of her character through a shallow exploration of her past, she remains unlikable. Bel could be a failure in character development, but could as easily be a failure in conception. And even with my limited experience with romances I know there is no greater recipe for falling flat than a poorly conceived principal.

Surrender of a Siren:

Readable, but just okay, 3 out of 5 stars

A Lady of Persuasion:

Yawnsville, 2 out of 5 stars

Goddess of the Hunt :: Tessa Dare

I've had a rough couple of weeks, so TG (my book pimp) gave me a gift. And what a gift it was!

Title: Goddess of the Hunt

Author: Tessa Dare

Read: East Village, NYC; one sitting

Format: Mass Market Paperback, Embarrassing Cover

In my limited experience, romance novels by Tessa Dare are kind of awesome. In her debut novel (and the first of the 'Sirens' trilogy, seriously), Ms. Dare gives us exactly what we want from a bodice-ripping romance. There's the unassumingly beautiful, headstrong virgin (Lucy) and the brooding nobleman with a secret and broad shoulders (Jeremy). There are misapprehensions. There's a happy-ending-red-herring about halfway through. There is thrusting and ravaging. Uniquely, this one also had a wandering, senile old woman.

Lucy Waltham has her sights set on one of her brother's friends. She attempts to practice her seduction skills on another friend, the stony Jeremy, Earl-of-something. For a variety of reasons, they find themselves fake-courting each other. But, how long does it stay fake? And how long will it take for them to know exactly how the other feels? Lust (and love?), etc ensues.

In Goddess of the Hunt, the characters are far from new - to romance or otherwise - but they are fun to follow regardless. Like all novels of its ilk, the joy is not in whether they get together (they will, duh), but how they get there. And the (guilty) pleasure Tessa Dare offers us in getting there is considerable.

An excellent distraction and a worthwhile way to pass a few hours:

4 out of 5 stars.

Wuthering Heights :: Emily Bronte

Title: Wuthering Heights [White Whale 2010, #2]

Author: Emily Bronte

Read: NYC

Format: Trade paperback

Let's not beat around the bush: I really, really didn't like Wuthering Heights.

In a nutshell: Heathcliff and Catherine love each other, but she marries someone else (isn't that always the way). After she marries and eventually dies, he gets all gloomy and haunted and vengeful and mean. They live on a landscape that matches Heathcliff's 'tude. He makes life miserable for everyone in two households. At the end, he dies and things start looking up.

Thoughts:

- I hate when character's accents are written phonetically.

- Heathcliff is overbearing, scary, and completely unsympathetic.

- Catherine, too, is unlikeable. Also, she is annoying.

- Bronte doesn't convincingly develop their 'love' or any kind of passion; as a motivation for decades of revenge, it falls flat.

- The narrative requires that the moor be a very insular world. But, the fact that everyone just accepts it as their whole world out of some under-developed sense of obligation is weak and convenient. Heathcliff was able to leave. If he's such an ass to everyone, why do they stick around?

- Rocky moors, unkempt terrain, cold, damp. It's gothic, I get it.

Even though I didn't like it, I'm glad I read Wuthering Heights - even if only to cross it off my list. Also, there are certain books that are referenced so frequently that it just makes sense to go through them. Even if they are not your thing.

Maybe if I read it when I was 12 I would have liked it more:

2 out of 5 stars