CBR15 Book 65: "A Curse So Dark and Lonely" by Brigid Kemmerer

Page count: 504 pages

Rating: 4 stars

A very long time ago, Prince Rhen, the crown prince of Emberfall, made a very foolish mistake and slept with the wrong woman. He's been paying for said mistake for centuries. Forced to relive the autumn of his eighteenth year over and over, he has to get a woman to fall in love with him in a few months, or he turns into a murderous beast and slaughters anyone he can find. If the curse remains unbroken, the season resets and Rhen is back on the day of his eighteenth birthday, starting the "game" once more.

The only one who survives his beastly rampages is Grey, the captain of his royal guard, who has to go into the mortal world for an hour at the start of every season to find a new woman to bring back to Emberfall, in the hopes of breaking the curse. 

Harper's mother is dying of cancer, and her father gambled away most of their money and abandoned his family, so now Harper's brother has to work as an enforcer for the people their dad owed money to. She's acting as a lookout for him while he's reluctantly threatening someone on behalf of his "employers" when she sees what appears to be a guy trying to kidnap a woman in an alley. Acting before she can think clearly, Harper jumps the guy to stop him and ends up in a magical land, trapped with Rhen and Grey. Apart from the two taciturn young men, the castle is completely empty. There are musical instruments that magically play, any food that is eaten magically reappears the next morning. Parker does her best to try to escape and discovers that the people who are living in the rest of Emberfall are suffering, believing that the royal family has abandoned them and trying their best to survive in the face of foreign invaders or the constant threat of the monster hanging over them.

The wicked sorceress who cursed Rhen in the first place has decided that this is his final chance at breaking the curse. If he doesn't find true love by the end of the season, he will remain a vicious monster and she will take over what is left of Emberfall. From Harper's clear dislike of him, Rhen is pretty sure that he's doomed, and tells Harper the truth (up to a point, he can't really bring himself to confess to being the monster that murdered the entire royal family and most of the surrounding villagers), figuring they might as well be honest with one another in the few months he has left.

Harper is not going to let the people around the castle starve or go defenseless. She demands that Rhen and Grey help her distribute some of the frankly staggering amounts of food around the castle, that just keeps magically replenishing every morning. She also makes Rhen understand that while he's rightfully depressed about the whole curse thing, he can't let Emberfall be invaded by a foreign power either. While scheming to try to trick the neighbouring ruler from giving up their invasion attempts, Rhen and Harper spend a whole lot of time together, but will it make Harper fall in love with Rhen before he turns into a monster one final time and all is lost?

This is the first of a trilogy, and the story is pretty much Beauty and the Beast meets Groundhog Day, except instead of Bill Murray learning to play the piano or carve ice sculptures, our hero is a mass murderer who has to live with the knowledge that as a monster he murdered not just the king and queen and his sisters, but all the people in the palace and a terrifying number of people in the areas surrounding the castle. In the many years since the curse began, Rhen and Grey have come up with plans to get the monster away from populated areas until the season resets, but while the prince and his loyal guard wake up healed and physically not a day older than they were when the curse set in, no one else who died can be brought back. That's going to mess anyone up, really.

Harper has cerebral palsy, and has had to go through a number of painful operations to fix her legs. She still walks with a limp, but refuses to let her illness define her. When the sorceress offers to magically heal her leg, Harper angrily responds that she's not broken. She hates that she's unable to do more to help her brother and mother, and it's her courage and sense of justice that makes her attack Grey when she sees him trying to bring another woman back to Emberfall, resulting in herself ending up trapped there instead. She's clearly nothing like any of the other women who have been brought there before and makes several escape attempts before realising that she might be better off working with Grey and Rhen, rather than against them. Once she sees how much the vengeful sorceress keeps torturing the prince and Grey, she reluctantly decides to make the best of a bad situation.

This is a very violent fairy tale retelling and I liked that it didn't pull its punches. The people outside of the palace do not have the seasons resetting, and while Rhen and Grey seem to have lived for centuries, only about five years or so have passed outside of the castle grounds. The common people of Emberfall have pretty much lost all hope, believing the royal family has fled and left them to manage on their own, against the raging monster and now an invading force from another country. Rhen isn't really sure how in the world he's going to be able to help his subjects, considering the rest of the royal family didn't flee, they were brutally murdered by the monster, as were all the other inhabitants of the castle, including the royal guard. There isn't really anyone to fight the enemy soldiers, but thanks to a rather farfetched scheme concocted by Harper, Rhen, and Grey, they're going to try anyway.

I'll be very interested in seeing where this series goes, considering the end of this one. There are some interesting new challenges set up and even if I didn't already own the whole trilogy, I would probably keep reading, just because Kemmerer did something a bit different with her story. 

Judging a book by its cover: On my paperback edition of this book, the title is in a shimmery silver (as is the back cover of the book) and I like the dark and slightly spooky look of the thorns and the woods. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read

CBR15 Book 13: "By the Book" by Jasmine Guillory

Page count: 325 pages

Rating: 3.5 stars

Isabelle (her friends call her Izzy) was so elated when she got a job as an assistant editor for a big publishing company. It was like a dream come true. Several years later, when she's overworked, underappreciated and still living with her parents at twenty-five, without even getting a promotion, she is starting to wonder if she should change careers. After having her own attempts at writing a book politely criticised by one of her more senior colleagues, that's another dream she's shelved, and now, despite her generally optimistic attitude, she is starting to consider giving up the whole publishing business.

After a conference in LA, Izzy hears her boss Marta complain loudly about one of their most difficult clients, infamous wild child Beau Towers, who got a massive advance on his celebrity memoir and then hasn't delivered so much as a page for over a year. Izzy impulsively offers to stay behind an extra day, drive to Santa Barbara and confront Towers personally, on the company's behalf. She's hoping that this extra effort might make her more likely to get a promotion, and if nothing else, it's another day in sunny California, rather than in wintery New York. 

When she arrives at the gorgeous mansion where Towers is apparently hiding away, she is met by the man's assistant. Towers himself doesn't even want to see her. How is she going to give him an optimistic and motivating pep talk if he won't even come out of his room? After Michaela, Towers' assistant trips and sprains her ankle as she's walking Izzy to her car, Izzy has no choice but to stay behind at the house to help ice and bandage the injured limb, and gets to see first how angry and terrifying Beau Towers can be to strangers, but also how friendly and gentle he is to his friends. Once he realises Michaela is hurt (he calls her Kettle), he completely changes from an angry grump to someone considerate and caring. He reluctantly agrees to let Izzy stay for dinner and listens to one of her pep talks, only to mock her mercilessly, causing Izzy to flee to the luxurious second-floor bedroom set aside for her. Having drunk too much wine with dinner, Izzy has no choice but to stay the night, and in the morning, Beau apologises for his rude behaviour and persuades her to stay for a few more days. 

The few days keep being extended, to one month and then another, and while it's clear that Towers has a volatile temper and can be rather grouchy, Izzy quickly realises that he's actually determined to write his memoir without any assistance from ghostwriters or the like, he just has no idea where or how to start. As the son of a famous supermodel and an award-winning screenwriter/director, Towers has lived a life of privilege and luxury. He clearly has no idea how much Izzy has to work just to make ends meet and how lucky he is to be able to isolate himself from the world in a ginormous mansion, without ever having to worry that his money is going to run out. However, he's also very lonely, having only interacted with Michaela for the past year, and as Izzy gets to know him, she discovers how conflicted he is about his dead father and the way both his dad and he treated his mother in the past. The main reasons for his failure to deliver any book pages isn't laziness, it's guilt and shame.

Even when Beau starts listening to Izzy's pep talks (she also discovers that he's been reading her weekly e-mails, despite them getting more and more informal as she became convinced they ended up in his spam folder) and they start working together to get him to write, it takes him several tries and quite a few temper tantrums before he's ready to really be open, honest and emotional in his writing. Beau's efforts at writing his memoir also motivates Izzy to consider her own writing again, and after being persuaded by Beau that her editor colleague clearly meant to sabotage her efforts with his harsh critique, she reassesses what she wrote and starts accepting that her own writing may have merit. 

Spending literally months together in a big house, working together daily in the gorgeous library, and having dinner together every night obviously make the two grow closer. Izzy fights her growing attraction to Beau, however, convinced she's only imagining the increasing moments of sizzling chemistry. She's also determined to stay professional. Besides, Beau is a rich recluse living in California and Izzy's life and job are still waiting for her back in New York. Once she gets Beau to complete the book, she'll never see him again. Right?

There are a lot of very clever and cute nods here, as you would expect. Our heroine is called Isabelle (Belle). She feels so lonely in Beau's big mansion during her first weeks there that she starts having imaginary conversations with the furniture. Beau calls his cook/housekeeper Kettle. There's a sweeping staircase up to the second floor. At one point, Izzy walks down it wearing a beautiful yellow dress. There's obviously a gorgeous library. There's even a rose garden. At work in New York, the colleague who keeps trying to sabotage Izzy (although it takes her so long to realise it) is called Gavin (Gaston). Nevertheless, the story also works in its own right, and I thought it was a fun twist on a well-known story, without ever getting too dark or angsty. 

I should note that this book is completely fade to black in terms of love scenes. The only heat you get is some passionate kisses, and this romance is a very slow burn, it takes Izzy and Beau a frustratingly long time to actually realise that they both feel the same way about each other, and smooching would be totally OK (and even strongly encouraged, in this reader's case). I'm guessing that's the Disney influence, can't have impressionable readers overwhelmed by actual sexy times happening (they clearly are, we just don't get to read about them).

This is the second book in the Meant to Be series, contemporary romance novels commissioned by Disney to retell their most famous animated movies. I've not read the first in the series, a Cinderella retelling written by Julie Murphy, but after this, I'm probably going to check it out, because this was charming as heck. I love a good fairy tale retelling and have a large collection of historical romances, contemporary romances and fantasy books that are all variations on Beauty and the Beast. It's important to note that this is a retelling of the Disney movie, not the original fairy tale. But since the Disney Beauty and the Beast was one of my favourite Disney movies growing up, this didn't present any problems for me. This might not be for everyone, but I thought it was a lovely February read (where I try to combine it being Valentine's Day - so romance, with Black History Month, so books by black authors, preferably with protagonists of colour). 

Judging a book by its cover: Every so often, a cartoony cover comes along to completely charm me, despite my general dislike of these sorts of designs. This is very much one that I adore, it's just so cute. The flowers, the heroine sitting up at the top, the flowing pages, the hero catching them. More of this, please, publishers. 

Crossposted on Cannonball Read. 

#CBR11 Book 9: "Wintersong" by S. Jae-Jones

Page count: 448 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Liesl dreams of becoming a famous composer, but is left to write compositions for her talented younger brother to play instead. Her beautiful younger sister is set to be married to the most eligible young man in the village, while Liesl helps her long-suffering mother and bitter father run their inn, their days of musical success and glory behind them. Jealous of her sister's beauty and brother's opportunities, Liesl becomes careless and suddenly, it seems her sister has been enchanted by the goblins, and taken away by the Goblin King. Even worse, no one seems to even remember that her sister has ever existed. Liesl has until the next full moon to figure out a way to retrieve her sister.

Once Liesl joins the kingdom of the goblins underground, she begins to remember more of her past, and her previous encounters with the Goblin King. As a little girl, she used to roam the woods, and play her music for a strange, pale boy, always slightly older than her. He kept asking him to marry her, and she would refuse. Growing up and being burdened with more responsibilities, becoming a supporting character in the lives of her more vivacious siblings, Liesl forgot all about the Goblin King. Tradition demands that he take a bride, however, and if Liesl won't come to him willingly, he will lure her there by threatening to take her sister instead. The Goblin King requires a mortal bride. Will it be Liesl, or her beautiful younger sister? And if she does decide to give in to the Goblin King, will Liesl really be fine with never seeing her family or the human world ever again?

This book, which is apparently Ms Jae-Jones' debut novel, was very favourably reviewed on several of the review sites I follow regularly, like Smart Bitches, Trashy Books and Forever Young Adult. This book isn't a retelling of just one story, but a bit of a mish mash of several familiar tales. As the Smart Bitches review points out, you can find elements of the Hades and Persephone myth in here, some Beauty and the Beast, some Phantom of the Opera and the Goblin King, or Erlkönig, is clearly visually modelled on David Bowie in Labyrinth. Even his eyes are two different colours.

The story is set in a historical Bavaria, around the 19th Century, where there are clearly faeries or goblins (complete with changelings and the like), who like to play mischief with humans. Over the course of the story, we discover that there have been a series of Goblin Kings, and that he has to have a mortal bride, or the seasons will stop turning. Liesl's childhood playmate is the last in a long line of Erlkönigs, and she is the last in a long line of mortal brides who have given up their humanity and entered into a marriage sure to end tragically.

Liesl's parents were both talented musicians in their youth, but time has taken its toll and her father's drinking has made it so that they have had to retire to a small village, running an inn and hoping their talented young son will be the next person to carry on the family legacy. That Liesl is clearly a talented composer seems to be entirely ignored. Always finding herself falling short in comparison to her brother's musical talents or her sister's beauty and charm, Liesl is quite the abrasive, jealous and bitter young woman. While she loves her family, and especially her siblings, she's also deeply envious of them and sick of having to sacrifice herself and her dreams in order to take care of them. She goes underground to retrieve her ensorcelled sister, but also to experience adventure and while she has to sacrifice a lot to become the Goblin King's bride, she also gets to be selfish. He clearly wants her, and she wants him back. She isn't choosing to stay with him out of selflessness, but rather to finally put herself first.

Liesl and her Goblin King don't exactly settle down into harmonious and happy domesticity, but Liesl does get the chance to truly devote herself to her music, and there is certainly passion between her and her supernatural spouse. I don't know entirely what I was expecting from this book, but the story took turns I was not expecting and the romance was a lot more thorny and challenging than I was hoping for. I liked the book, but I didn't love it and I'm not sure I'm in any urgent rush to read the sequel, for all that this one ends on quite the cliffhanger. It was a good book, but not quite the magical fairy tale I was hoping for. Maybe I was still working through my book hangover from The Winter of the Witch?

Judging a book by its cover: The cover is lovely, with the delicate rose preserved inside a snow globe. Not entirely sure what the cover is supposed to represent, as there are no snow globes of any kind in the actual novel, but it's a very arresting and inviting cover nonetheless.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 79: "The Duchess Deal" by Tessa Dare

Page count: 389 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars

Miss Emma Gladstone was a respectable clergyman's daughter until a foolish indiscretion made her father condemn her and forced her to walk all the way to London during the winter. She lost a toe. Now she's making a living as a seamstress, but will be fired if she doesn't get paid for the extravagant and somewhat excessive gown she created for Annabelle Worthing, until recently betrothed to the Duke of Ashbury. To make sure she's taken notice of, she dons the over the top gown and visits the reclusive Duke in person to demand her money.

George Pembrooke, the Duke of Ashbury, known as Ash to the few friends he has left, was badly scarred in the Napoleonic wars. One side of his face and much of his upper body is ravaged by burn scars and the results of the army surgeons trying to save his life. With his engagement to Miss Worthing dissolved, he still needs to find a suitable wife to give him an heir. He takes his duties seriously and refuses to surrender his people and properties to his dissolute cousin. He's taken by surprise by the forthright Miss Gladstone and impulsively proposes marriage to her. She believes he is jesting with her and obviously refuses, but once he's settled on the idea, he decides that only she will do.

Once Emma realises that the Duke of Ashbury is entirely serious, she accepts, because she would be a fool not to. Becoming a duchess isn't a chance any woman should pass up, even if the duke is a self-loathing, brooding and rather imperious sort of man. While the scars are obviously impossible to ignore, Emma nevertheless finds Ash very attractive and suspects that she may find making an heir with him rather enjoyable. Ash has certain terms for the marriage. 1) They will be husband and wife at night only. 2) No lights or kissing. 3) No questions about his scars and 4) Once Emma is pregnant with is heir, Ash will send her to an estate in the country and she will never have to share his bed again. Miss Palmer, one of Emma's high-born customers at the modiste is pregnant, and terrified to tell her father. As Emma knows all too well how devastating parental disapproval can be, she promises to help, and if she gets pregnant quickly, she'll be able to invite Miss Palmer to come stay with her in the countryside until the babies are born, with no one being the wiser.

Of course, Emma refuses to live in an entirely emotionless marriage. She insists that she and Ash have dinner together every night and she refuses to take him too seriously. She brings a feral tomcat with her when she arrives, and Breeches, as she names the beast, proceeds to terrorise the household. Refusing to call her husband by his given name, George (it was also her father's name), Ash or the formal Duke, she proceeds to try every endearment and pet name under the sun, in order to tease him. She tries to keep herself from falling too deeply for her husband, not wanting to get hurt, but the meddlesome servants of the Duke's household do whatever they can to constantly throw the Duke and the Duchess together, desperate for them to fall in love, so Ashbury will lighten up a bit and stop making their lives more difficult with his brooding and self-pity.

Elyse over on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books described this book as "a fairytale Regency that blends Beauty and the Beast and Cinderella and Batman". She's not wrong! This book has all of those elements. The Cinderella element is obviously the seamstress becoming a duchess. Tessa Dare has a previous romance with a huge gap in social status between the couple, when she has a barmaid marrying a duke in Any Duchess Will Do. That book is also excellent and one of my favourites of her back catalogue. Without wanting to spoil too much, the Batman subplot comes into the story because cranky and brooding Ash tends to wander the London streets at night rather than allow himself to sleep next to his wife, and will frequently beat up muggers and other ne'er-do-wells who try to attack him or others to channel some of his aggression. There's even a lovably young lad who insists on becoming his loyal sidekick.

This is the first book in a new series for Dare, entitled Girl Meets Duke. As well as befriending and doing her best to help Miss Palmer, Emma also makes the acquaintance of four eccentric young ladies on the other side of the square, many of whom I suspect will be heroines in future adventures. Before this book came out, I was in really a rather serious reading slump. I had only finished ONE single book in all of August, as well as re-reading one. With The Duchess Deal, I could barely put the book down. I read until far too late into the night, making me seriously sleep-deprived at work the next day, and spent every available minute I had to spare reading more. I finished the book in less than twelve hours and was so thoroughly delighted and entertained by it.

Tessa Dare tends to have a lot of rather frivolous and unlikely plot elements in her historical romances, and I can understand that for some readers, some of the seeming anachronisms and silliness can get a bit much. I thought this was her best book in years and absolutely loved it. The 'Beast of Mayfair' storyline went on for a bit longer than I would have liked, and Ash really did take way too long to realise how lucky he was to have Emma, but I also loved that he only swore in Shakespearean quotes and the bit where his long-suffering butler, Khan, finally has enough and loses his temper was worth the price of admission alone. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants a quick, fun and diverting read. Even Mrs. Julien, who has previously occasionally found Tessa Dare's books to be too silly for her, liked this one a lot. I'm already looking forward to the next in the series.

Judging a book by its cover: I really can't remember which side of Ash is horribly scarred, but based on this cover image, it really can't be his left side, or there have been some serious omissions from the cover designer. I don't hate the cover, but I'm not sure I personally would have chosen what looks like a soft-focus stock photo from a slightly raunchy wedding shoot as the cover for a Regency romance. The dress the woman is wearing is far too modern for the time period, you can't just put the male model in a poofy shirt and expect that to be enough to signal "period clothing".

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR5 Book 100. "The Chocolate Rose" by Laura Florand

Page count: 253 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Jolie Manon's father was one of the very top chefs of France, before his restaurant lost it's third Michelin star, and he had a stroke. Now Jolie is trying to coax him back into greatness, with a cookbook featuring several of his most famous recipes, although her father is cranky and despondent and refuses to be seen in public. Of course, she can't tell her father that they're being sued, by his former employee, now a star chef in his own right. Jolie needs to go to the Côte d'Azur to negotiate some sort of compromise. She's worried that news of the lawsuit is going to make her father have a relapse.

Gabriel Delange has a three star restaurant in Provence, but still can't believe that his old nemesis, Pierre Manon, has the gall to publish a cook book where at least a third of the recipes were invented by Gabriel, while he worked himself nearly to death to secure Manon the coveted third star, sacrificing his health and losing his girlfriend. Gabriel is furious to realise that Manon won't even face him personally, but sends his youngest daughter to negotiate. He's shocked to realise that his old nemesis had a stroke, but still can't forgive him. He knows that if he forces the issue, the old man may get sicker. Maybe he can blackmail the beautiful daughter into making a deal on her father's behalf?

Jolie remembers Gabriel as a skinny and constantly overworked young man from her father's kitchen. She's not prepared for the burly, muscular and very loud man she encounters, and she certainly hadn't expected to be completely incapacitated by her attraction to him. When he promises that he will drop the lawsuit if she works on a cookbook with him, spending three days a week working in close proximity with him, she has no choice but to agree. She wants to make a name for herself as a food writer, and working with one of the star chefs of France certainly can't hurt. Of course, she remembers all too vividly how her parents' marriage fell apart, and her mother's dire warnings that she never get involved with a chef. Besides, what chance would she have with a man who considers her father his greatest enemy?

I adore Florand's romances, which seem very calculated to appeal to women on a number of levels. You have the tall, handsome, temperamental supremely confident and very capable heroes, all involved in some form of food preparation, be it chocolate, pastries or gourmet food. They're set in France, in supremely romantic locations, with lavish descriptions both of the surroundings and the many delectable things that the heroes create with their magical food preparation skills, and that they woo the heroines with. In this, Florand has also written a modern twist on a classic fairytale. There's the sick old man, the youngest and most loyal of three daughters. There's a stolen rose (in this case a famous dessert created by Gabriel, which Manon takes credit for and agrees to have on the cover of the cook book) and there is the daughter agreeing to spend time with a loud, beastly individual to protect her father's health. As variations of Beauty and the Beast go, this was a very creative and incredibly fun one.

I loved how Gabriel was both wonderfully arrogant and supremely confident both in his attractiveness and his skills as a chef, yet was so vulnerable because of his terrible luck in previous relationships and his desperate yearning for a stable, long-term relationship with a wife and kids. While Jolie has seen her parents' marriage dissolve because of her father's single-minded focus on his work, and is deeply aware of her mother's warnings, she's also clearly fascinated with the work of top chefs, and loves spending time in busy kitchens. She understands what drives Gabriel, and as she feels a need to be alone a lot, his demanding work schedule is not actually a major obstacle. Like Florand's previous novels, this was a delight to read. I can't wait for her next one.

CBR4 Book 78: "When Beauty Tamed the Beast" by Eloisa James

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Date begun: August 24th, 2012
Date finished: August 24th, 2012

Miss Linnet Thrynne has to get married fast, after her obvious flirtation with a prince and an unfortunate fashion disaster has made the entirety of polite society convinced that she is pregnant. But what man would be willing to take a woman embroiled in scandal, possibly carrying an heir of royal blood?

Piers Yelverton, the Earl of Marchant, lives in a fairly remote spot in Wales, and has absolutely no wish to get married. He'd much rather practise medicine and let his formerly alcoholic father's bloodline die out without issue. Piers is a brilliant physician and also in constant pain due to a leg injury from his childhood (see bad relationship with his Dad). Yet when his father comes to visit, bringing the stunning Linnet with him, Piers can't help but be impressed, both with Linnet's physical charms, but by her sarcastic wit and refusal to be threatened or cowed by him. Used to bossing his junior doctors around and having everyone obey his every whim, he rather likes having Linnet around to talk back at him.

As the gorgeous Linnet and the crotchety Piers spend more time together, their attraction grows. But when an outbreak of scarlet fever erupts in a nearby village, their budding romance might come to a dramatic end.

Eloisa James freely admits that her hero, the Earl of Marchant is based on Dr. Gregory House, and that, as well as some of the wonderfully witty dialogue between the many different characters, is what really made the book for me. Linnet isn't a bad heroine, but no matter how witty, it's hard to fully sympathise with a character who's looks are constantly described as gorgeous, stunning and bewitching. Piers, with all this flaws, was a lot more appealing, and I admired his dedication as a physician, as well as understood his fraught relationship with his father - alcoholism really can and has destroyed many a happy family.

By no means one of my all-time favourite romances, the Regency version of Dr. House more than made up for some of the flaws the book had, and the book really is a lot better than the awful cover makes it seem.