Prospero’s Daughter – Nancy Butler

Healing Hearts

Repaying a debt of honor by helping the illustrious General Sir Janus Paltry write his memoirs, Morgan Pearce must leave London--and a most delectable married woman--behind. And though he's not happy about venturing out to the officer's country estate, the dashing rogue cannot deny the creature comforts of Palfry Park or his instant attraction to a mysterious woman in a Bath chair.

Recovering from a carriage accident, and neglected by her family, Miranda Runyon spends her time alone ... until Morgan enters her life. At first, Miranda rebuff's his advances. But when Morgan's attentions begin to transform Miranda in both body and soul, she risks her heart for a love like none she has ever imagined.

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The meaning of the title was a mystery to me. Not knowing what to expect I was pleasantly surprised when I realised the book featured an invalid heroine, Miranda Runyon. There are not many of those around, and it makes for an unusual and interesting plot. (As for the title, I found that Prospero is the protagonist of Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ and his daughter is Miranda).

Morgan Pearce works in his uncle’s publishing business (much to his father’s resentment) and visits Colonel Sir Janus Palfry to help him write his memoirs. While there he accidentally meets Miranda, Sir Janus niece, who after a carriage accident that killed her parents 3years ago is paralysed and confined to a bath chair. Sir Janus keeps Miranda hidden from visitors and mostly confined in her room and looked after by servants. Morgan would like to help Miranda, both mentally and emotionally as well as physically if possible, as he is not certain that she is truly paralysed.

In the beginning Miranda behaves like shrew, rebuffing his attentions and wanting to be left alone, but Morgan perseveres in seeing her and talking to her, and Miranda finally comes to accept his company and his efforts on her behalf. He helps her, by playing cards with her, and helping her learn how to write again, as well as looking up medical texts and write to doctors for advice.

I really liked how Miranda’s and Morgan’s relationship develops and how they get to know and like each other. Morgan was great, as was Miranda. I even liked her in the beginning when she was peevish and quite rude. I also liked how the author is questioning Morgan’s motives and feelings. He is nice guy, playing the role of the good Samaritan, but while he grows to like Miranda a lot, the reader gets the feeling that he does not seem to consider Miranda as his future partner (ie wife), but only as a friend. And that the fact that she can not walk is the reason for that, and if Miranda was not a an invalid, but a ‘normal’ young woman he would see her differently. Of course by the end of the book Morgan realises his mistake.

There is also a nice secondary romance between Morgan’s brother Kitty and Morgan’s friend Phillip who was injured in the war (he has lost a leg). The fact that Morgan was not able to help Phillip, gave him an added motive to want to help Miranda, when he first met her.

All in all, a very enjoyable book. I really liked the invalid heroine theme and she does not get cured before she ends up living happily ever after the hero, a fact that I really appreciated. In other such books (or book, as I have not read many with this theme), the heroine gets to be cured and can walk again before the hero and heroine end up happily together. As if a heroine with a disability is not acceptable - not good enough for the hero - and has to be fixed first. Thankfully Ms Butler avoids this, and the book is better as a result. While not perfect, it is a book I can heartily recommend.

Grade 4/5

Reforming Lord Ragsdale - Carla Kelly

The Rake's Progress

Emma Costello owed a debt of honor to one of the most dishonorable lords in the realm. The infamous Lord Ragsdale was as rich as sin, as sinful as he was rich, and as heartless as he was handsome. But he had saved Emma from a fate worse than death when he stopped a lecherous brute from buying her as an indentured servant.

It was Emma's turn now to save Lord Ragsdale from his wicked ways. She had to find a way to stop his drinking, his gaming, his wild revelry. She had to make him break with his mistress, the superbly sensual Fae Moulle. She had to make him a suitable suitor for the ideal wife that the prim and proper Lady Clarissa Partridge would be. And above all, she had to keep his lustful eye from lingering too long on herself--even as she struggled to keep her own growing desire from undoing all her hard work in the unmaking of this irresistible rake…

Carla Kelly is a well known author in the traditional regency genre and although I’ve already read 2 or 3 of her books I have yet to find one that satisfies me completely. This Reforming Lord Ragsdale was no exception.

The storyline is a bit different from your average regency. Ragsdale saves Emma from being gambled and lost in a game of cards by his young cousin and buys her indenture. Despites her being Irish and him hating all Irish because of losing his father and his eye he can’t help interfering in such an appalling situation. Since he then owns her he feels somewhat responsible for her and tries to discover what happened to her in the past to make her a servant when she is clearly someone educated in polite society.

As he tries to understand and help Emma so does she try to help him become a better man and eventually in winning the woman he decides he wants to marry. In fact she is determined to get her indenture back and not feel in debt to him so she decides she will save him from himself as payment to him.

I loved how Kelly wrote a true rake, very unlikeable in the beginning till we slowly start to understand him and appreciate him. We go through that process at the same time that Emma does in fact, we discover that there are more layers to him and what’s inside is so much better than what is on the outside. It’s very interesting to see them become aware of each other’s virtues and see them slowly changing towards the other.

However I think Kelly’s way of writing is too rational and although I understand everything perfectly I would prefer more emotion, more angst, so I could feel everything too. For instance Emma is always so rational and composed that I never felt any empathy with her, it was easier to feel for Ragsdale who had strengths and fragilities, mood changes and an evolution as character to someone worthy of loving and being loved in return.

Grade: 4/5

DANCING WITH CLARA - MARY BALOGH

A Lady Without Illusions

Miss Clara Danford had no illusions about Frederick Sullivan. She knew that this magnificently handsome gentleman was a rake whose women were legion and whose gambling debts were staggering. She also knew why he wished to wed her. It was not for the beauty and grace she did not have, but for her fortune, which would rescue the dazzling wastrel from ruin. Should she refuse and lose her one chance to have such a splendid mate? Or should she accept a proposal made with lips that lied as skillfully as they kissed? One thing was sure. Clara might have no illusions to lose--but she would have to be careful not to lose her heart.

I have to begin by saying that I really love this book, it still amazes me, after having read it a few times, that from such poor premises – Poor Little Plain Cripple Rich Girl meets Best Rogue in Town Prince Charming, they get Married, and Every Problem / Character Flaw is solved and they live Happily Ever After. I honestly didn't believe a book like that could work, and I only read it because it was written by Mary Balogh and because the heroine was crippled – something not so often encountered in romances.
But hey, this time I was proved wrong! The heroine did NOT inspire pity and the hero did not abandon his rakish ways after spending 5 minutes in the heroine's sainted company.

So, the heroine, Clara, is a girl who spends all her time in a wheeled chair because of a grave illness that left her with very little power in her legs. The lack of knowledge at the time about this type of affliction caused an aggravation of the problem, and she is presently incapable to walk. On top of it, she doesn't boast of the best of looks, she's very pale and ill looking. Not a beauty. But lucky for her, she has money. So, when the very beautiful rake of a hero comes her way, she takes the opportunity and accepts his proposal of marriage. She knows he has not even warm feelings for her, he is a gamester, a drunkard now and then, he is even lying in her face when proposing, there is nothing to recommend him except for his looks. But this is exactly why she wants him, she wants a little beauty in her life, she is conscious of her needs as a woman and intends to act upon them by marrying this handsome man. That's something I really liked in the heroine - she treats all this like a fair trade: she gives the money he needs for his debts and she receives a little of his time and company.

The hero is not quite such a blackguard as we are let to believe. I could not see him as a villain even in “Courting Julia”, but it's true that he does not behave in a gentlemanly way, he sort of knows it, and he's ashamed of it. I think this is the central drama of the book, and the story is more about him, than about the heroine (despite the title). He was once just a careless youth who started living a little too wild, started having many debts, and tried to solve his problems by doing something he should not have (can't write about it, it would be a spoiler for “Courting Julia”). And now, because he is basically decent at heart, he suffers for it, thinks of himself as a villain, and keeps living in a wild way. So I see the story as the classical plot – Redemption of the Rake, but done in a very nice, believable way. Freddie is in a deep pit, and the process of redemption is quite slow, and evolves in a credible way. He does not abandon his ways at first sight of the heroine, and not even after they get married, he keeps drinking, playing cards and he is even an adulterer (which by the way, seems to be quite a taboo in romances, and I don't why since extra conjugal sexual relationships were in full bloom in that period!). But he does get better eventually, and to witness it step by step is truly a nice reading experience.

Grade: 4.5/5