#CBR12 Book 10: "Six Degrees of Scandal" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

Official book description:
Olivia Townsend is in trouble and out of options. Pursued by a dangerous man in search of a lost treasure she doesn’t possess, she’s got only two things in her favor: her late husband’s diary, which she was never meant to see… and the man who was her first—and only—love. Losing him broke her heart, though she’s been careful to hide it for the last ten years. But when he comes to her aid and vows to stand by her, no matter what, she can’t help but hope things will be different for them this time.

James Weston has blamed himself for letting Olivia down when she needed him years ago, and now he’ll do whatever it takes to keep her safe—and to win her trust again. He’s confident he can outwit the villain chasing Olivia. But being so near her again threatens to expose every secret in his heart … even those that he swore would stay hidden forever. 

Olivia, our heroine, is an old friend of Penelope from Love in the Time of Scandal. In that book, it's obvious that Olivia has gotten herself into some really dangerous trouble, and Penelope persuades her brother, James, to track her down and help her.

James and Olivia have a past. When the Westons moved in close to where Olivia's family lived, she befriended Penelope and her sister, and also fell hard for James, who was a few years older. As they grew up, Olivia's crush only grew, while her family's already dwindling fortunes disappear. When James comes back from University, he and Olivia share a passionate encounter in the woods near their homes, and James promises to marry her. He is unaware of how desperately Olivia's parents need money, however, and goes off on a long journey to prove himself to his dad, not realising that Olivia will be forced into marriage while he's gone. By the time he returns from his trip, it's too late.

Olivia's husband seems to have been indifferent and neglectful rather than abusive, but he was up to some pretty shady stuff, the extents to which Olivia never realised until after she became a widow. Now she's on the run from a ruthless, sadistic nobleman, who used to be her husband's partner. He not only believes she's keeping secrets about her husband's last transactions from him, but seems to have decided that he also wants to use her sexually. When James manages to track her down, she's hiding in a remote village, trying to get to the bottom of what her husband was actually involved with.

James and Olivia figure out that Olivia's dead husband was part of an art smuggling ring, and the creepy Viscount Clary thinks Olivia knows the whereabouts of a very valuable painting. Keeping one step ahead of their pursuers, James and Olivia do in fact figure out where the painting is and get it to safety, while also rekindling their old romance. Unfortunately, they also need to figure out a way to neutralise Viscount Clary for good, or Olivia will never be safe.

We're back in "Malin reviews books she read several months ago" and hence, I cannot promise that my recollection of details is all that it should be. This is the final book in the Scandalous series, Regency romances where one of the subplots involves the heroines reading and enjoying the erotica pamphlets 50 Ways to Sin. In this book, it's finally revealed who the actual author is, not that I cared all that much. it was nice that the author and the printing of the final dozen or so of the erotica was actually an important factor in how the dastardly villain (who tried to drown the heroine in the last book) was finally taken down.

I read the first of the books in this series back when it came out in 2013, and while these romances, for the most part, have been perfectly fine, if unremarkable reading experiences, I think it's very telling that I only pick up another one in the series when it fits into one or more of my reading challenges. There's even one left in my collection (I also only ever buy them when they're available in book sales for 2 dollars or less, so it's not like they've cost me much), about James' other sister and based on the contextual clues I've gotten about her romance from these two other ones, I'm genuinely not sure I can be bothered.

If you have nothing else to read, this book is fine. It's not going to upset you or shock you, but you're also not likely to remember much about it about a week after finishing it either.

Judging a book by its cover: Good things: nice colour on the dress and background wallpaper. Dress appears to be appropriate to the historical setting. The cover models have the same hair colour as the characters they're supposed to be portraying. Bad things: the pose of the characters, is the male cover model's chest and arms glistening? If so, why? Not entirely sure what is going on with the dude's shirt either, it looks like he has some sort of puffy cushion stuck to his arm. Do better, Avon.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR11 Book 31: "Love in the Time of Scandal" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3 stars

From Goodreads:
Penelope Weston does not like Benedict Lennox, Lord Atherton. He may be the suave and charming heir to an earl, as well as the most handsome man on earth, but she can't forget how he abandoned a friend in need—nor how he once courted her sister, Abigail. He's the last man she would ever marry. If only she didn't feel so attracted to the arrogant scoundrel...

Once upon a time, Benedict thought he and Penelope got along rather well. Though he needs a wealthy bride to escape his cruel father's control, spirited Penelope just doesn't suit his plans for a model marriage—until a good deed goes awry, and scandalous rumors link his name to Penelope's. She might not be the quiet, sensible wife he thought he wanted, but she is beautiful . . . beguiling . . . and far more passionate than he ever imagined. Can a marriage begun in scandal become a love match, too?

I'm going to be honest with you, people. I read the synopsis for this book and had a hard time remembering even reading the book. I literally had to glance at two or three reviews already on Goodreads to remind myself of the finer details of the plot, because my mind was a complete and utter blank. Now, it's been a bit over two months since I finished the book, but I shouldn't need to question whether I in fact read the book in the first place. It really doesn't speak too well for the plot that it's quite so forgettable.

When I had refreshed my memory, I also remembered one of my biggest problem with this romance. Benedict, the hero, has an absolute monster of a father. His entire family was held hostage to the man's cruel treatment, and while Benedict's sisters and mother weren't necessarily physically abused (Benedict was not so lucky), they were deeply emotionally scarred. Penelope keeps being hurt because her husband doesn't want to introduce her to his parents, and even after she meets his father and can tell that there's something really rather wrong with him, she still doesn't really believe Benedict's warning and out of weird politeness puts herself into a situation where not only she, but her husband, nearly ends up dead.

I get that it can be difficult to understand a dysfunctional family situation if you've grown up in a loving, supportive home, but Penelope seems to think that Benedict is overreacting or exaggerating when he is reluctant to admit the true awfulness of his former home life, and she seems bemused even after one of Benedict's sisters (now happily married and away from her father's evil presence) confirms just how bad things were. Like, why would someone make something like that up?

That's the thought that now remains with me - it's genuinely like someone took an eraser and smudged out the actual romance part of this story. Benedict starts the novel courting someone else, but because Penelope believes him to be untrustworthy, she warns the young woman away. Trying to help a family friend in a tense situation, she is then put in a deeply uncomfortable, near sexual assault situation that Benedict conveniently rescues her from. Penelope's dress is torn (I think) and some gossip or other walks in on them, cue scandal and pretty much having to marry to save Penelope's reputation. She claims she doesn't like him because he was once her sister's suitor (who in an earlier book in the series ended up with someone else), but it's clear that deep down, she was jealous of her sister and liked Benedict a bit too much.

I honestly don't know if it's because I've had a LOT to do and my mind has been busy with other things that makes it so impossible for me to remember the plot, or if the book is in fact completely forgettable. I didn't like the domestic abuse subplot with Benedict's family, not sure it's the strongest recommendation that that's the bit that sticks most in my mind.

Judging a book by its cover: Oh mercy, how I hate these romance covers with the people on the cover so awkwardly positioned that you just twist your brain trying to figure out the anatomy. How is the majority of the skirt spread out like a sail when he also has it bunched up so much you can pretty much see all of her legs? Why is her upper body facing one way and her legs the other? It's not great, guys.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR10 Book 21: "My Once and Future Duke" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Sophie Graham is twelve when she is orphaned and left in the care of her arrogant grandfather, the Viscount Makepeace. Her father, his second son, eloped with an opera singer (Sophie's mother) and was summarily disowned. Sophie spent her childhood travelling through Europe with her parents. When both her parents die from illness, there is no one left for Sophie. Her grandfather sends her to boarding school, where she befriends Miss Eliza Cross, the daughter of an industrialist, and Lady Georgiana Lucas. Sophie's grandfather pays her tuition until she is 18, then she has to make her own way in the world. Working as a ladies' companion for a while, Sophie is left 300 pounds in the widow's will, and uses the money to set her "grand plan" in motion. Inventing a dead husband, so she is now Mrs. Campbell, Sophie uses the gambling skills and her gift for card counting to slowly amass a nest egg for herself, gambling at the Vega Club in London. She wants to continue until she's set aside ten thousand pounds, and then either find herself a nice husband or retire to the country and live on the interest of her money.

Having managed to save up about four thousand pounds, Sophie is still a long way off her goal when she encounters Jack Lindeville, the Duke of Ware. The duke has come to the Vega Club, forced to pay off the gambling debts of his reckless younger brother, Philip, and is determined to make the man stop throwing his money away without any care of consequences. When the duke sees his brother, who only earlier that day swore he would no longer visit the club, gambling with an attractive woman, he challenges said woman, Sophie, to a game instead. Sophie discovers that the duke is not much of a gambler, and is quite happy to keep taking his money, until the duke makes a rather extravagant wager. If she wins, Sophie gets five thousand pounds. If she loses, she is to spend the next week with the duke. As this is a romance novel, of course Sophie loses, and Jack, determined to teach his brother a lesson, spirits Sophie away right there and then. While she protests, he takes her to his country home a bit outside London, where they end up trapped for several days because of the rain turning all the roads back to London to mud.

Jack desires Sophie, but regrets his impulsive actions almost immediately. Sophie, in turn, really does not need her reputation to be tarnished any further than it already has been. She already makes her living from gambling, but otherwise makes sure her reputation is spotless. If society believes her to be the duke's mistress, she'll no longer be allowed to see her friends, Eliza and Georgiana, and she'll lose any chance at a decent marriage. Nevertheless, they can't travel for a few days, and Sophie tries to figure out why the duke acted so rashly and what makes him tick. Soon they are starting to become friends, but are also aware of the attraction simmering between them. The dukes of Ware never marry for love or on impulse, and Sophie is perfectly aware that she's far from the suitable wife for a duke. Their relationship can't really go anywhere, can it?

The dedication of this book is for Miranda Neville, in memory of her, to be exact. I hadn't even realised that she had passed away, but some quick googling gave me additional details. Back in 2015, during Cannonball 7, I read The Wild Quartet, the best of which was absolutely The Duke of Dark Desires, but I enjoyed all four. I had always planned to check out more of Ms. Neville's books, both from her back catalogue and newer ones. It seems Ms. Neville died in October of last year, after battling cancer, so it seems extra appropriate to be reviewing this book, dedicated to her memory for CBR. We are all about the F*CK cancer, after all.

I discovered Caroline Linden as an author a few years ago, with her series The Truth About the Duke. All the books in that series were very enjoyable and well-written, and I keep reading her books, hoping that she'll once again write something of the same quality. She keeps being favourably reviewed on romance review sites, but I tend to find her books mediocre at best, and rarely memorable for very long. The books are perfectly fine as I read them, and then I can't remember a thing about them about a week later. Very disposable entertainment. I do remember more of this book, but mostly just the bits that annoyed me.

What I disliked:
- What is the Duke of Ware's full name? I refuse to believe his given name is actually Jack, which seems far too informal a name for someone with a title that lofty.
- For all her insistence on not tarnishing her reputation, it takes less than three days for Sophie to jump into bed (or a sofa in the library, as the case may be) with the duke. She's rather bad at guarding her own virtue.
- There is something of the insta-love aspect to this book. Jack and Sophie spend very little time together before they fall head over heels. Yes, they actually initiate an affair and keep furtively meeting for what seems like weeks, but both have clearly fallen for the other before they pack up and leave the cosy country mansion to return to London.
- The dowager duchess was tiresome in the extreme, and her complete inability to see anything inappropriate in her younger son's behaviour and lifestyle choices was rather implausible.
- The third-act complication keeping the lovers apart - and how it needed to be resolved. There's a lot of needless drama to keep the couple apart for longer than is necessary, which felt like it just dragged the story out.

What I did like:
- Sophie's plan is a very sensible one, and it's nice to see someone making their own way in the world with mathematical skills and playing the odds. Until the duke of Ware dangles five thousand pounds in her face, she never seems to take foolish risks, preferring to spend a bit longer saving up to secure her future.
- Once he's corrected on his judgmental preconceptions about Sophie and her lifestyle, Jack very quickly comes to admire Sophie as much as she deserves.
- The friendship between Sophie, Eliza and Georgiana was nice, even though I would have liked some more time spent on their meetings. Eliza's clearly going to be the heroine of the next book.

As so many romances I read these days, this was a perfectly ok read, with nothing too objectionable to make me upset, but also nothing much to make me want to re-read it any time soon or remember it come next month.

Judging a book by its cover: See, here the cover designer has clearly had some idea of the contents of the book. The cover model has the same hair colour as our heroine, and she's wearing a red dress (obviously showing way more skin than any respectable Regency woman ever would, but such is the ways of romance covers), just as Sophie is in the scene where she first meets the Duke of Ware. They've even given her a playing card to hold, with additional cards on her lap. It's not great, but I'll take it.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 123: "For Your Arms Only" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 388 pages
Rating: 2 stars

Alexander Hayes fought bravely during the Napoleonic war and achieved the rank of Major. During the battle of Waterloo, he was gravely injured and nearly died. When he, some weeks later, managed to get back to rejoin his fellow soldiers, he discovered that not only had one of his childhood friends died during the battle, but that he was being accused of treason. In absolute disgrace, he lets his family continue to believe that he died, and goes to work as a spy for England, in the hopes of eventually being able to clear his name.

Now, five years later, he is sent to locate a soldier whose gone missing from his former home town. He needs to come clean to his family about having been alive all these years, without being able to tell them the truth about where he's been or why he never contacted them. He also discovers that the soldier's youngest daughter, Miss Cressida Turner, is deeply distrustful of strangers, and just as likely to shoot him as aid him in his search. Once Cressida realises just in what dire straits her missing father left her, her widowed sister and aged grandmother in, she has no choice but to join forces with the mysterious possible traitor, as her family will be destitute and homeless if her father is not located soon.

A View to a Kiss, the first book in this trilogy, was a fairly slow and rather uneventful book, despite having a spy as a main character and several others as part of the supporting cast. As it had the rather unusual premise of a noblewoman falling for a commoner, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and rated it higher than I possibly should have. It does, however, mean that I'm not so generous with my rating of this second book, starring Alex Hayes/Alec Brandon, one of the supporting spies of book one, as this one is if possible even less exciting than the first one, and here there is no creative turning on its head of common tropes.

Our hero is worried about returning to his home town, and the only one who seems truly happy to see him is his mother, who doesn't seem to care why her youngest son is alive but hasn't been in contact for five long years. One of the reasons Alex is told by his superiors that he should return home (in addition to the mission) is that his older brother passed away a while back, so he is now the heir to the estate. His younger sister Julia is deeply hurt (very understandably so) and his cousin, who believed himself to be the heir and who has dutifully taken care of everything since his brother's death, must be some kind of saint, as he doesn't protest even a little bit to have his believed inheritance suddenly snatched away. For a while, I believed he may turn out to be part of whatever villainous plot had made Papa Turner disappear (because there was going to be some sort of plot, right?), but SPOILER - he turns out to be totally legit and just goes back to being a nice person somewhere else.

So the plot of this novel, such as it is, involves Alex trying to locate Turner the elder (I do not remember what military rank he was, and I don't care enough to look it up). The first time he runs into Cressida is when he's snooping in the Turner family's stables, and Cressida shows up and pulls a gun on him. She thinks he's handsome and is impressed that he doesn't seem even vaguely intimidated by her (he's a trained soldier, lady, he fought in the war. A slip of a girl with a gun isn't actually much of a threat to him). Her father has been missing for almost two months, and what little money the womenfolk he left behind had, is rapidly running out. While it seems to be pretty common practise for Papa Turner to go off for weeks or the occasional month, he always returns, flush with cash and expects his mother and two daughters to be pleased. He's never been gone two months without word before, and Cressida is getting worried.

After some joint snooping, Cressida and Alex manage to find Papa Turner's journal, which is written in code. Cressida, it seems, has always had a knack for decrypting things and sets about trying to decode the journal, in the hopes that they will find her father that way. I wish I can say they go on lots of exciting search missions, but nope, that is not the case. There's mainly a whole lot of nothing happening for much of the book.

There's a secondary romance subplot involving Cressida's widowed sister and one of their loyal family retainers, who has apparently loved her faithfully since before she got married to the scumbag she is now widowed from. There's their grandmother, who is clearly going senile, and only sees the good in her clearly disreputable son (who does NOT seem like he was a very good father), convinced he will show up any second now. Alex' sister Julia keeps being surly because he won't tell her anything of importance, and she's worried he did in fact commit treason all those years ago.

After three quarters of a book of really nothing much happening at all, there is suddenly a big, over the top action-packed finale, when they discover the truth behind Papa Turner's disappearance (which coincidentally, and very conveniently) turns out to be related to Alex' being accused of treason after Waterloo. Suddenly there's nefarious villains, and people being manhandled and threatened and there's danger and destruction and in a book which has pretty much been people pottering about the country side asking questions, or trying to figure out a code in a book, it seems very sudden and badly out of place.

I still have the final volume in this series left to read (curse those e-book sales), but considering how dull this book turned out to be, I'm not exactly going to be rushing to finish it.

Judging a book by its cover: If I recall correctly, the hero of this novel has short blond hair, not some dark and flowy mullet. The heroine is described as much younger than the lady on this cover, with nearly black, straight hair and she seems to dress fairly primly. So I'm assuming the publishing department just found a generic historical romance cover and called it a day, not really bothering with any kind of accuracy.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR9 Book 113: "A View to a Kiss" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars

Lady Mariah Dunmore is the daughter of a highly regarded diplomat, and has lived most of her life abroad with her very understanding mother and father. They would like her to find a nice man to marry, but seem perfectly fine with her taking her time and as they have such a good marriage themselves, no problem with her wanting to marry for love. Sadly, Mariah finds all the gentlemen of the London season rather tedious and uninspiring, until she meets a mysterious man in the shadows on the balcony at her parents' ball, who charms her with his boldness and conversation. To her intense frustration, according to her mother (and the extensive guest list), there was no one called "Harry" among the evening's guests.

This is because Harry Sinclair was attending the ball in disguise, working as a spy for the home office. Wearing the guise of the elderly and cranky Lord Worth, his job is to keep an eye on Lady Mariah's father, as the Home Office suspect someone may want to harm him in some way. In the daytime, Harry poses as the lowly secretary for yet another high ranking nobleman involved in politics, mostly transcribing long letters about gardening and horticulture. He's snuck out on the balcony for a break when he comes across Lady Mariah, and although he knows she is far beyond him in every way, can't help but strike up a flirtation with her. While Harry's mother appear to be well-born (but was disowned by her family when she eloped with his father), his father is a retired actor who runs a playhouse. Harry hopes he can make enough connections spying for the Home Office to eventually establish himself in politics, so he can help the many poor and destitute of England.

While they are deeply ill-suited, Harry can't seem to stay away from places where Mariah will be, and soon starts climbing up the trellis outside her bedroom window for midnight meetings with her in her bedroom. He keeps being very secretive about his identity and background, but makes it very clear to her (although not why) that the reason they have to meet all clandestine-like is because her parents would never approve of him. Can the high-born lady and the commoner ever find happiness together, or will Harry be shot for trespassing with Lord Dunmore discovers him in his daughter's bedroom?

For a book purportedly about spies, this book is really very slow and not all that much of an exciting nature happens. There is a brief action sequence in the last third of the book, but I really must admit I had been hoping for a bit more suspense than this book provided. If the hero wasn't a commoner, trying to win the hand of a woman way above his station (which you just don't see very often - a duke can marry a serving maid, or a dressmaker, or even a lowly seamstress, but wealthy ladies don't just marry nobodies), this would be a very solid 3-star book. It may still be, but I really did appreciate a romantic couple a bit outside the norm, even if most of their romance developed because the hero broke into her bedroom - which is probably a bit objectionable in itself (although Lady Mariah does seem pleased as punch about it, and he never takes any liberties that she's not offering up with enthusiasm).

Come to think of it, the lives of low-level spies are probably not all that exciting, and surveillance is probably both tedious and time-consuming. I wasn't necessarily expecting this to be the romance equivalent of a James Bond movie, but there could have been a bit more action and drama. I read romance for escapism - let me get carried away for a bit.

Caroline Linden has written some pretty good romances, this is one of her earlier efforts, and I'm not super excited. Since I have paid money for the entire trilogy, I suspect I'll get round to reading them eventually, but it makes me sad that this is not as entertaining as some of her later books.

Judging a book by its cover: I don't have a whole lot to say about this cover, because it's neither very exciting, nor particularly objectionable. A handsome dude and a lady who are at least partially (but possibly wholly) naked are about to kiss. This is a romance, you should probably expect that sort of thing to be happening. At least by choosing this approach, there is no chance of the outfits being deeply wrong for the period in question.

Crossposted on Cannonball Read.

#CBR Book 130. "Love and Other Scandals" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars

Miss Joan Bennet is dangerously close to being on the shelf, and the only thing close to romance she is experiencing is in literary form.  Her mother keeps dressing her in the height of fashion, yet her with her tall, curvy figure, she looks like an idiot. At social gatherings and balls, she's a constant wallflower. She'd love to be noticed, by anyone at all. Except possibly Lord Tristan Burke, her brother's best friend and a notorious rake. Lord Burke thinks Joan is a bossy Fury, who's made it her life's mission to torment her brother as much as possible. But when Joan's parents have to go to the seaside for Joan's mother to convalesce, and Joan's brother is sent away to see to repairs on the family estate, he asks Lord Burke to make sure Joan stays out of trouble.

Joan's eccentric and slightly scandalous aunt comes to stay with her, and soon Joan has a new and improved wardrobe which flatters her rather than makes her look like a gaudy umbrella. Lord Burke, who has already discovered that the best way to shut his best friend's bossy and opinionated sister up is by kissing her senseless, is suddenly starting to consider whether he may not have to change his mind about what a chore it is to have to entertain her while her family are out of town.

I really liked Caroline Linden's The Truth About the Duke trilogy, which I read earlier this year. Romance is also a good choice for the 24 hour Read-a-Thon, as the books tend to be frothy and easy to read. There just wasn't all that much to this book. Having finished this book about two and a half weeks' ago, I was actually having to struggle to remember the plot for the two paragraphs of summary. There is no great conflict. Joan and Tristan met for the first time as children, because Tristan is Joan's brother's best friend. Tristan was orphaned and raised by his horrible relatives, and has always envied the Bennet family their closeness. He's a rake, he doesn't think he wants commitment. Joan reads romance, in particular a smutty story in eagerly awaited instalments called 50 Ways to Sin (yes, exactly. See what she did there?) and thinks she knows what to expect from romance and sex because of it. They bicker, then Tristan kisses her once to shut her up (because that's always charming) and from there it's pretty much insta-lust.

There was nothing much to distinguish any of the characters or make me care about them and their romance. Caroline Linden isn't a bad writer, as such, so there were some fun descriptions and some witty banter on occasion, but every time I was starting to think that maybe the book wasn't so meh after all, up popped a mention of the 50 Ways to Sin again, and made me want to rage-quit the book. By no means a bad romance novel, merely mediocre, and really rather forgettable. If you want good romance to read, give this one a miss, and take a look at my Top 100 romances instead.

#Readathon October 2013: Hour fourteen

Currently reading: Nearly finished with Love and Other Scandals
Pages read in the last hour: 73
Pages read in total: 976
Books completed so far:  Nearly three
Snacks: Just water and Coke Zero
Mini-challenges: Nope

#Readathon October 2013: Hour thirteen

Currently reading: Love and Other Scandals
Pages read in the last hour: 56
Pages read in total: 903
Books completed so far: Two and a two thirds
Snacks consumed: A ham and cheese muffin. Coke Zero
Mini-challenge completed:
Best of my reading year (so far) from Lisa's World of Books

Best Romance out in 2013: Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare
Best classical Romance: Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale

Best fiction: The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman

Best YA: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black/Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

Best fantasy: The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Best comic/graphic novel: Saga vol 1 and 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona K. Staples

#Readathon October 2013: Hours eleven and twelve

Reading now: Love and Other Scandals
Pages read in the last two hours: 150
Pages read in total: 847

Snacks consumed: Carrots and low fat dip
Pizza rolls

Mini-challenges: Mid-event survey

1) How are you doing? Sleepy? Are your eyes tired?
No, not yet, but in my experience it'll get harder to read and stay awake around hour fourteen or fifteen

2)What have you finished reading?
Dark Currents by Jaqueline Carey
Adventures with the Wife in Space by Neil Perryman

3)What is your favourite read so far?
Wife in Space

4) What about your favourite snacks?
The ham and cheese muffins I had during the first hours. They were amazing. So glad I have more!

5) Have you found any new blogs through the readathon?
No, I've not really done a lot of browsing this year, I'm pretty focused on reading. But I want to thank the cheerleaders who so far have commented on my blog. Thanks guys, it's appreciated!

#Readathon October 2013: Ten hours, baby!

Reading now: Love and Other Scandals by Caroline Linden
Pages read in the past hour: 79
Pages read in total: 697
Books completed: Dark Currents - Jacqueline Carey
Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living with Doctor Who - Neil Perryman
Snacks consumed: Just water
Mini-challenges: Still no new ones. I don't really watch book trailers, so I don't feel I can participate in the current challenge

#CBR5 Book 19. "The Way to a Duke's Heart" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Charles de Lacey had a massive falling out with his father, the Duke of Durham, because when he was 22, Charlie wanted to marry a penniless girl of unsuitable family, and his father made sure the marriage never happened. Now Charlie's father is dead, and he discovers that the late duke also had a youthful indiscretion, but that said impulsive marriage may cost Charles his title as duke, and make him and his younger brothers illegitimate. While his two brothers initially started trying to sort out the whole scandal, one through legal means and the other by tracking down the blackmailer, they've both gone and fallen madly in love with their new wives, demanding that Charlie himself save the ducal title, his estates and their fortunes.

Having tried desperately to be the best ducal heir ever until their falling out about his ill-advised romance, Charlie was all the more determined to be the biggest disappointment possible afterwards. Known throughout England as a rake, a scoundrel and seducer of women and generally good for nothing, Charlie is rather shocked when his brothers demand he take matters into his own hands. He starts in Bath, where his brother Gerard discovered the name of the man who posted the letters. At the hotel where he's staying, he runs into a haughty young widow, who unlike pretty much every other woman he's ever met, has absolutely no time for him, and seems to regard him as a nuisance rather than God's gift. As she seems to be doing business with the potential blackmailer, he wonders if she's an accomplice in the plot against the de Laceys, and even follows her and her elderly companion in order to ascertain the truth.

Mrs. Tessa Neville has learned the hard way that charming and good-looking gentlemen are not to be trusted, she's been burned before, and has sworn off men entirely. She's also learned that most men are either disbelieving of or completely put off by her intelligence and business sense. Managing her brother's estate and advising him on financial matters is a very rewarding life for her, she doesn't need gorgeous and notorious noblemen swooping in and charming the wits out of her companion. Once she spends more time with the Earl of Gresham (as the title isn't legally his yet, Charlie doesn't call himself a duke), she discovers that he's not just a handsome face, and that he seems to have a lot of time for her cleverness and forthright opinions.

The previous two de Lacey brothers both fell in love very quickly indeed, but both seemed to at least spend a little bit of time getting to know their significant others. Tessa goes from pretty much loathing and mistrusting Charlie, to being head over heels in love with him. The flaws in his character are actually really well explained in this book, as is her wariness towards men and romance, but she still changes her opinion of him pretty much overnight, and that seemed a little bit too sudden for me. Seriously, they spend less than a week in a muddy little village, while she's investigating a canal scheme her brother wants to invest in, and Charlie desperately tries to find anything else in the world to do rather than go through boring old ledgers to investigate his father's clandestine first marriage.

I see why Charlie fell for Tessa, but her opinion goes from "get away from me" to "please get me out of these wet clothes and ravish me" (because she does indeed turn up on his doorstep, at night, in the pouring rain) in about 2 days. It seemed like a pretty boring village, but at least her companion entertained herself with lurid novels, she didn't just throw herself at the first handsome guy who showed her the least bit of interest.

Still, despite the extremely sudden change from dislike or at least indifference to mad, passionate love on Tessa's part, I really enjoyed this book too. The final revelation of what actually motivated the blackmail and caused the "Durham Dilemma" was nicely done, and having to sort out his own troubles led to impressive personal growth in Charlie. I suspect I may have to go back and check out Caroline Linden's back catalogue, to see if her previous novels are as entertaining as these.

#CBR5 Book 18. "Blame It on Bath" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

Gerard de Lacey may be declared illegitimate because of a clandestine marriage his father, the recently deceased Duke of Durham, entered into in his youth, before he married Gerard's mother. A year before his death, the Duke started receiving letters blackmailing him. Now the London gossips won't stop talking about the "Durham Dilemma", his brother Edward is busy trying to prove their legitimacy through legal means, and his older brother Charlie, the heir, is mainly staying far away from the whole business. Gerard thinks the best way of solving the situation is tracking down the blackmailer. He also plans on finding himself a rich wife as soon as possible, so that he can secure his future, even if the scandal is not resolved in the de Lacey brothers' favour.

The blackmail letters were posted from Bath, so Gerard resolves to go there. Before he even leaves London, he may have solved the issue of securing a rich bride. Lady Katherine Howe, a recently widowed lady, approaches him at an inn, offering him marriage and her enormous fortune of nearly one hundred thousand pounds. She needs a husband in a hurry, or she'll have to marry her dead husband's unpleasant nephew. She knows Gerard needs money, in case the courts declare him and his brothers bastards. What she doesn't tell Gerard is that she grew up not far from the ducal seat in Sussex, and has nurtured an unrequited infatuation for him for over a decade.

So Gerard suddenly finds himself very much married, to a complete stranger. It doesn't take him long to see that the combination of Katherine's beautiful, drama-queen mother, and her much older, stern and overbearing former husband have had a massive impact on her self-esteem, confidence and general demeanour  She seems desperate to please him, and is extremely surprised every time he wants to spend any time talking to her or you know, have marital relations with her. She's even more surprised to find out that sex can be fun and enjoyable. Of course, he also needs to learn that actually sharing his thoughts and feelings with his wife is good, she won't just be distracted with more smexy times every time difficult topics come up.

I mentioned that I liked the fact that the heroine in the last book in the series, One Night in London, was a widow with a happy former marriage, who seemed to have a very positive attitude to romance, sex and relationships in general. Well, here we get the opposite. Poor Lady Katherine has been told that she's plain and dull and unattractive since she was little, and her mother has made sure she got everyone's attention at all times by making sure her daughter dressed in frumpy, unflattering clothing. Then she was married off to a much older man, who mistreated her and had several affairs.

So it's no surprise that she built her infatuation of the gallant young Gerard de Lacey up as something wondrous, and decided to go after him when he was finally in a position that he was unlikely to accept her offer of marriage. He really does a very good job being patient and understanding and encouraging, insisting that she buy colourful and pretty dresses and not cower all the damn time. I can't really fault him for being so thoughtless that when he finally gets a lead in the blackmailing case, he goes off for weeks without sending her word, because it's established that he's rather impulsive and rarely thinks things through carefully.

I still enjoyed this book a lot, if maybe not quite as much as the first book in the series. Next up - the resolution of the whole blackmailing scandal, and the eldest brother Charlie's book.

#CBR5 Book 17. "One Night in London" by Caroline Linden

Page count: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars

First of all, I have no idea what the heck is going on with the cover of this one. God knows what she's actually doing, my husband has several theories, but all of them pretty much qualify in the NSFW category, so we'll just leave it at that. Covers like these make me so very happy that I have an e-reader, because while I'm really not at all ashamed to admit that I enjoy romance novels, and read a lot of them, this is just not a cover I would want to display while on public transport on my way to work and back every day.

Lord Edward de Lacey is second of the Duke of Durham's three sons. On the Duke's deathbed, he confesses to Edward, and his youngest son, Gerard (the heir to the title is a wastrel and a rake who apparently had a massive falling out with his dad, and doesn't show up in time for the passing of his father) that he has a rather inconvenient secret he's been keeping. In his youth, before he became a Duke, he married a woman in secret, and never really made sure the marriage was dissolved or checked whether said woman was dead before he married his sons' mother. He's been receiving threatening notes that suggest someone knows about this, and the three young lords will need to figure out what actually happened, or their entire inheritance is at stake.

Gerard, the soldier, and apparently also the hot-headed one, goes off to try to track down the blackmailer. Charles, the rakish older one appears completely unbothered by the fact that he may not be a Duke after all, but fairly destitute with a scandal attached to the family name. Edward, who was always the calm and sensible one, who's been running the family estates and business for years, decides that the best way to solve things is to hire a clever solicitor, and prove their claims in court. If the Courts award Charles the title, no later proof of illegitimacy will be able to strip them of their inheritance.

Lady Francesca Gordon is a young widow who needs to hire a solicitor to gain custody over her niece. When her sister, and later brother-in-law died in short succession, no will was written to grant her legal custody over the girl. Francesca is convinced that the girl's stepmother is taking advantage of the girl's inheritance to support herself, her useless artist brother and the twins she bore shortly after the death of Lady Gordon's brother-in-law. Most of the men she talks to, refuses to take the case. She has finally succeeded in convincing one, when he rushes off and drops her like a hot potato, because Edward de Lacey wants to hire him instead. Francesca is furious, and shows up on Lord Edward's doorstep to tell him exactly what she thinks of his underhanded tactics. He's rather baffled by her impertinence, and makes her realise that he had no idea he had "stolen" her solicitor away from her.

Because Edward foolishly confessed the truth about his father's indiscretions to his fiancee, he in short order finds himself with a dissolved betrothal and the gossip rags speculating wildly about the "Durham Dilemma". Francesca approaches him with a deal - she will help him get a retraction printed, if he'll agree to help her find an attorney to take her case, and win her niece back. Edward wants the gossip killed as quickly as possible, and the meddlesome Lady Gordon out of his hair as well, so he agrees. Of course, once he spends more time in her company, he discovers that her case to locate and win custody of her niece is an easy one, and he grows more and more attracted to her every time they meet.

This book had the refreshing change of a heroine who is not a blushing innocent, but rather a widow. And not a widow with a miserable first marriage either, but a kindly husband who she misses greatly. She's actually the more aggressive of the two in the relationship, initiating the first kiss and generally doing her fair share of heavy lifting when it came to the seducing. That doesn't happen too often. It also meant that you don't have to have some sort of tedious variation on the inevitable deflowering scene, but instead two people who have both had sex before, and know that they enjoy it.

I liked that the couple genuinely seemed to like spending time with each other, and after the initial misunderstanding and slightly wrongful first impressions they had of each other, they discovered that they worked very well together in trying to locate Francesca's missing niece. The attraction between them is rather sudden, but the actual development of the relationship is given more time, and unlike in some romances, both characters also reflect on how suddenly they seem to be falling for each other.

Caroline Linden is a new author to me, but I'd seen her favourably reviewed in a few places, and Mrs. Julien read this entire trilogy last year, which suggested that it couldn't be all bad. This book sets up the main arc of the trilogy, each featuring one of the de Lacey sons, and I'm assuming that the complications surrounding the impending scandal and the blackmail and securing of the Ducal title will not be sorted out until the final book - set to feature Charlie, the dissolute rake one. As I enjoyed this one rather a lot, and have already bought all three books, I will proceed with reading about the youngest, hot-head brother next.