Review: Good Earl Hunting by Suzanne Enoch

Format: ebook
Pub Date: November 6, 2012
Size: 211KB
FTC: Purchased myself

A group of well known authors recently launched a site for short stories called Lunch Hour Love Stories. It features stories that are quick and mostly inexpensive,  all in one easy-to-find location. My first purchase was a short story by Suzanne Enoch called Good Earl Hunting.

I'm a long time fan of Ms. Enoch's, so it's no surprise that I bought this on name alone. She's an expert at characterization, which really helps in this shorter format. And it helps that this is one of my favorite themes in all of romance: the overlooked, less beautiful sister.

My only complaints are all largely a result of the short format. While the two main characters are lively and believable, everyone else is a bit thinly sketched. They are there, but don't do very much, and we never really get more than a fleeting description. The romance also happens extremely quickly here.  So quickly, it strains the believability for me just a little. This story would probably have worked better as a novella, with at least another 10-15 pages added on for the romance.

Overall, it's a cute, quick read, with some very memorable moments.

My Grade: B-

The Blurb:

Geoffrey Kerick, the Earl of Vashton, has had marriage-minded ladies flung at him for the past two years—since he inherited his brother’s title and wealth—which is much less amusing than when they were simply flinging themselves into his bed for fun.

However, this particular invitation for a country house party in Devonshire he accepts with alacrity; because this time someone has caught his eye.

Theodora Meacham is resigned to being second; a second daughter, second in beauty, and a distant second in charm. Knowing that the irritating Lord Vashton is coming to Beldath Hall to woo her sister, Theo is, for once, quite happy to remain detached from the silliness. But Lord Vashton isn't precisely the boor she expects. Even more surprising, he seems determined to ignore her sister…in favor of her!

Can two people who are perfectly ill-suited find that two wrongs do make a right?

Review: A Beginner's Guide to Rakes by Suzanne Enoch

Format: mass market paperback, ebook
Pub Date: October 4, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's
Length: 339 pages
FTC:  Review copy courtesy of the publisher

Let's just get this out of the way: the title, A Beginner's Guide to Rakes,  has zip to do with the story. Nada. Zilch. Squat. It's a throwaway title. And that pisses me off a little because this plot could have had so many good titles for it. Some hint about the contents. But...no. There is no guide. And the "hero" isn't really a rake, either.

The basic premise: a destitute widow blackmails an old lover into funding her plans for a gaming club. The club, the Tantalus Club to be precise, is located in the downstairs portion of her only remaining residence, having sold all other property to settled her deceased husband's debts.

When I heard Enoch was moving to a new publisher, I was, quite frankly, a bit worried. She has a unique voice. Her characters are nearly always smart, witty, and give as good as they get. That isn't missing here, but the book as a whole reads a little more bitter and sharp in tone than most of Enoch's backlist. There's very little real humor here. And nearly no family dynamic, which tends to soften some of the Enoch books.

Waiting on Wednesday: A Beginner's Guide to Rakes by Suzanne Enoch

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted over at Breaking the Spine. Every week, we highlight titles we just can't wait to get our greedy book-loving hands on.

Format: Mass Market pb
Pub Date: October 4, 2011
Publisher: St. Martin's
ISBN: 9780312534516

Details are sketchy about this book so far, but I did glean from Ms. Enoch's Facebook page that this is the beginning of a new series, not a continuation of the Adventurer's Club series. And... I somehow missed the fact that she's changed publishers! This one is being published by St. Martin's!!

I'm a big fan of Suzanne Enoch's historical romances, and I'm curious to see how a shift in publishers will affect her writing.  *fingers crossed*

Review: The Rules of an Engagement by Suzanne Enoch

Format: Mass Market Paperback
Pub Date: October 2010
Publisher: Avon
FTC: Purchased myself

The Blurb:

For proper young ladies, good behavior has always been the rule…
Captain Bradshaw Carroway loves the seafaring life—though he’d rather be battling brigands than his current assignment of ferrying a boatload of spoiled aristocrats. One passenger, however, has caught his eye: a bewitching young minx who definitely distracts him from the rules of shipboard decorum . . .
Some rules, of course, are meant to be broken.
Miss Zephyr Ponsley has traveled the world, but she’s completely innocent in the ways of love. She’s never learned to dance or flirt. But scientific observation has taught her that the laws of attraction have no rules, and that no adventure, on land or sea, is more dangerous—or delicious—than passion!

I loved Enoch's Lessons in Love trilogy. Every book was very different, but the Rake and England's Perfect Hero are my favorites. Partly because they are about the Carroway family, which I adore. So when I saw that Rules of an Engagement was about Bradshaw Carroway, I was doing a Snoopy dance in the aisles of the grocery store.

It's been six years since the last Carroway book. Six years. But I have to say it was worth the wait.  (Okay, technically, this is part of the Adventurer's Club series, but in my heart, it's a Carroway story).

Review: A Lady's Guide to Improper Behavior

It's not often that I am both entranced and repulsed by a heroine in a romance novel. Usually I either love them or hate them. Theresa (Tess) Weller is a heroine that I think might rub some readers the wrong way, but a character I both loved and wanted to smack upside the head.

Our hero, Colonel Bartholomew (Tolly) James is much more evenly appealing. The book opens with him--wounded quite badly and the sole survivor of a massacre-- hiding out in the Adventurers' Club, away from the sympathy and pity of his family. His family's persistent requests for his presence, though, force him back home where he encounters Tess Weller at a dinner party. Despite being rude and provoking a mild argument, he seems to capture the attention of Tess--someone who is never rude, always proper, and is somewhat obsessed with remaining a paragon of unexceptional behavior.

Review: The Care and Taming of a Rogue by Suzanne Enoch

Suzanne Enoch is one of my favorite historical romance authors. While she occasionally disappoints, she did not do so with The Care and Taming of a Rogue. It's a bit different from her normal writing and doesn't have the emotional depth of...say...England's Perfect Hero...but it's fun all the same.

Upon his return from the Congo, Captain Bennett Wolfe is surprised to learn that society believes him to be dead. And that someone who was part of his last expedition has stolen his journals and published a book effectively ruining Wolfe's reputation.

Phillipa, a bluestocking whose matrimonial prospects consist of her sister's eventual cast-off suitors, is surprised when Capt. Wolfe, a man whose previous adventures she had read about, takes an immediate and obvious interest in her.