A Regency Valentine - Anthology

Although Valentine's Day is in February I couldn't resist picking up this anthology on the eve of going on holidays for a bit of comfort read.

Golden Rose - Mary Balogh
I've read many stories where the jaded rake is saved by the love of a good woman but Balogh always seems to add something more to hers. This is one such example and despite being an old plot you can't resist finishing it with a satisfied sigh. Especially as this seems like a comedy of errors with the hero believing he is sending flowers to a society's widow while his young cousin is taking them to the heroine, who believes them to be from another man.
Grade: 4/5

Katherine Kingsley - The Secret Benefactor
While I really enjoy stories with less than perfect heroes here you don't really feel the pain involved in the hero's past. He has been playing benefactor to the heroine who, after her father's death, became destitute, and is too afraid to tell her he loves her. I did not feel his motives were enough and thought he should have told the truth much earlier.
Grade: 3.5/5

Emma Lange - Lady Valentine's Scheme
I'm afraid feisty, impulsive heroines are not my favourite and this story suffered from having one. She is betrothed to a young man who is clearly a mamma's boy and has mixed feelings when an old friend, now a rake, returns and seems to have feelings for her.
Grade: 3.5/5

Patricia Rice - Fathers and Daughters
I do have a fondness of stories about a second chance at love and this one was wonderful. The hero is forced by the heroine's father to leave her and when he returns, now rich and worthy of her, she doesn't make it easy for him to explain much less offer his love again. But his bastard daughter will be the means to bringing them together.
Grade: 4.5/5

Joan Wolf - The Antagonists
I usually enjoy Wolf's stories but I must say this one disappointed me a bit. Not enough banter between the main characters to make it stand out when they finally realise they are in love and I didn't particularly liked Dinah which, being this written in the first person, could be the main problem for me.
Grade: 3.5/5

Anthology grade: 3.5 (but very worth it for the Rice and Balogh's stories)

A Double Deception - Joan Wolf

I've read some books by Joan Wolf and on the whole I enjoyed the regencies more than the european historicals so when the opportunity arised to read one more I didn't hesitate.

After one terrible marriage, Laura Dalwood had sworn never to be duped again. But how could she refuse the proposal of handsome Mark Cheney? What could she do when, as his bride, she discovered how much she could love a man . . . and how much she could fear him?

A Double Deception seemed to have the ideal plot for me. A marriage of convenience story where both the hero and the heroine had troubled pasts with unhappy marriages. I actually did like the idea and how Wolf developed it. It starts with their first marriages and then jumps forward in time. Mark is a widower with a son and departs for the sea leaving the boy in the care of his nurse. Laura is a widow but without children and through her godmother she goes to live and raise Mark's son. When Mark returns they spend a few days in the same house without a chaperone and therefore marriage is the best solution to stop the gossips. Not only do they have to get to know each other as Laura has to face the rumours that Mark murdered his first wife and when a series of accidents start to happen those rumours start again.

It becomes obvious that there's a secret regarding Mark's first marriage and his wife's death. A also that someone is trying to hurt Laura to put the blame on Mark. This could have been interesting if the villain had been a bit stronger and if there had been a confrontation between them. Instead we are told what really happened and who was behind the accidents but there's no sense of closure. Another weak point is that we are told from the back blurb that Laura feared her first husband but it seems he ignored more than mistreated her. I would have liked more background on her because she was such a sensible and nice girl.

Grade 3.5/5

A Kind of Honor - Joan Wolf

Her mariage offered everything but love
When beautiful Amanda Doune wed the Duc de Gace, the elegant exiled French noble offered her full enjoyment of his wealth and position in return for her total worship of him. But her early adoration could not long blind her to the fact that her husband was capable of loving only himself.

Her lover offered everything but marriage
Brilliant and gallant Adam Todd, Lord Stanford, offered Amanda all that she could want as a woman at the cost of all that she had vowed to be as a wife. Was the loss of her good name and her beloved young children worth the promise of pleasure she tasted in the arms of her husband's most deadly enemy? Amanda's future and the fate of England itself hung on her moves in a game of romance and intrigue where kisses courted disaster and love rewrote the rules...

One really can't say that Wolf stays away from original/difficult subjects. In this quest to read most of her books I have been surprised with the variety of subjects and interests she tackles.

In this A Kind of Honor she surprised me because it's not often that I read about adultery in traditional regency, at least involving both the hero and the heroine. I do like her writing but I think it lacked a bit of emotion and I must say I was a bit bored and had to force myself to end this story. Adam and Amanda fall in love after he is invited by her husband to be a guest at their house while he is in London investigating a possible traitor who has been revealing Wellington's plans to Napoleon. They were in such a difficult and emotional situation that I felt I should be more involved in their story and not just an outsider. Moral considerations aside it couldn't be easy to have your husband and your lover under the same roof, I think I would have liked to read more about their moral dilemmas and struggles with conscience. That psychological aspect was approached but very lightly.

Since this is a romance you can guess that the husband was a villain or else it wouldn't be easy to justify the adultery. I don't think she was successful in that department because he wasn't truly villainous towards the heroine, just disinterested. They make much of him being a spy for Napoleon but at least in my eyes that wasn't enough to make him truly hateful.

I think another problem for me was that for the hero and the heroine to be together there had to be either a divorce or a death. Since the story wasn't angsty enough for me to be waiting for the resolution with bated breath, I thought it was predictable and disappointing. It did happen differently than what I had imagined but it seemed to me that the end came about a bit too neatly...

Grade: 3/5