This book did not make a favourable impression from the start, The hero, Lord Ruan, who arrived at a house party intending to woo the spinster heroine's very young sister instead enthusiastally took the heroine's virginity.
The heroine, Anne, was a less enthusiastic and active participant on account that she was practically rendered unconscious by laudanum following an injury.
It was short of rape however because she was revived transiently enough to orgasm and give the hero some serious head service.
Her brotherinlaw walked in on them, and they were forced to wed, although only after Ruan tried to snake his way out of it by crudely justifying to her brotherinlaw in her presence that he couldn't help himself given how great her legs and "tits" were.
Classy and gentlemanly behaviour!
So, they endeavour to make the best out of their marriage with Ruan taking it to mean, he could hump his new and virtually virginal bride missing hymen but also missing memory of the night of her lost virginity against the wall without taking time out to prepare her adequately aka foreplay or to even bother to ensure her pleasure.
Not very well done! He did acknowledge his lack of finesse, but did we read about him making it up to her No, they did the deed here and there and everywhere and great mention of how much he enjoyed her body and her great tits, but whether she enjoyed herself, we had no idea.
She seemed enamoured enough of him, but that be due to the fact that she was the perfect submissive doormat wife despite her so called intelligence and wit.
She was more than happy to repeatedly "Yes Sir" his every request, which involves a lot of skirt lifting and bending this way and that.
There is innocence and then there is stupidity as evident by the fact that she took inordinately long time to work out she was being sexually molested by a pervert, justifying his leering and body groping as accidental.
When it finally dawned on her what had happened, she ran off to seek comfort in Ruan's arms only to find him cooped up in company of his mistress with Ruan audaciously annoyed that she did not knock first.
In true doormat style, she apologised for disturbing them and told him it was perfectly fine and that she accepted he needed some "diversion from the dullness" of her.
Where is your selfworth, woman!! It turned out that Ruan was ending his relationship with his mistress, because inviting wellknown OW to the ball held in his wife's honour in their marital home in order to farewell her was such a great tasteful idea.
Now the coup de grace that ended this book for me was that in his subsequent conversation with his brotherinlaw, Ben married to Annes sister, who chided Ruan for his thoughtless behaviour towards Anne, Ruan never showed any remorse for his poor choices and actions.
Ben, who hitherto had been a pillar of decency then proceeded to tell Ruan how desirable he thought Anne was, and how much he still enjoyed watching her and her long legs move and that he wanted to bed her from the moment he laid eyes on Anne, but was only stopped by the fact that he was already in love with her sister.
Yes, huh I had to read that a few times, and it still makes no sense to me except making me feel a like I needed a good soapy scrub.
Now in among all of the above, there is an obscure crime sideplot where the author throws in random little tidbits out of the blue, that left me thinking, did I miss something before that.
Oh, and the shallow arseherole asked her not to wear her glasses, never mind that she couldn't see clearly without them resulting in headaches.
I don't give too many one, but this whole book just felt really amateurish and unpolished, Worse, there were some parts that I found truly icky and offensive, and that is where my one star ratings come in.
I am disappointed, because my previous book by CJ was great, I might brave another one from her, but I'm done with this series as the characters all appear quite amoral as supported by reviews by other readers.
I've never had the opportunity to read any novel from Ms, Carolyn Jewel as this was a first listen, I truly enjoyed it, So far this year, I've been listening/reading many new to me authors, some hits and some misses but I don't think I've DNF'd them.
I like Anne the heroine, Athough she was not a belle of the ton, she had an inner beauty, intelligence and her on convictions that I like very much in her character.
She's seen to this ready as an ordinary person with a mind but sometimes overlooked due to the beauty of her sisters.
She's a diamond in the rough and I for one was happy that Cyssyr saw that beauty, I liked how the author joined both MCs together into something that truly became love for one another,
The intimacy was very prevalent a lot of sex between the MCs that it almost became a bit overwhelming and also a bit of mystery thrown into the dramatics of the story.
Overall, I thought Ms. Jewel's story was nice and I would entertain more by her,
Stars
Original review October: First book from this author for me, and I really enjoyed it.
Her writing style is a little different from other HR authors I've read, and I like it, I also really liked the MCs, and some of the secondary characters too,
I agree there is some controversial material in this book, It was first written in, and I wonder whether such a story would be written/published in our current climate,.
Possibly not. I can understand why some readers don't want to go there with this book, or why they give it a low rating or dnf.
I have to say I was not aware of any of that when I started it, I'd seen some good recs and read a couple of positive reviews, I'm also trying out new to me authors, Once I started it I realised there was a controversial aspect to the story, .
And I can accept that it therefore won't be for everyone,
But for me, in the context of the setting ofodd years ago, I found myself accepting what had happened, and from then on I was drawn into the story.
I liked Cynsyrr, the hero, in spite of all, He knew he was a rake and had behaved badly, but to give him credit he accepted full responsibility for his actions and didn't try to weasel out of it or make excuses.
There was some complexity to his character, and he genuinely loved and respected Anne,
I liked Anne too, A highly intelligent woman who had been 'hiding her light under a bushel', She doesn't see herself as anything out of the ordinary, as she's somewhat overshadowed by her beautiful sisters, She considers herself a spinster, but unexpectedly finds herself married to one of society's most popular and sexy bachelors, I liked the way the author depicted the way these two intelligent and lonely people connected together so well and tumbled into love with each other.
There was also a bit of a mystery story, a whodunnit running alongside the love story, This was done quite nicely, with a few red herrings along the way, and a dramatic climax where all is revealed.
There is a quite a lot of sex in this book, mainly but not exclusively between the MCs.
At times it was almost too much, But it was wellwritten.
Overall, I enjoyed my first Carolyn Jewel despite the controversial aspect, and I'm keen to read more by this author.
Reread for DecemberBOTM for Historical Romance Book Club, 'Forced Into Marriage' trope, I giveagain : I recently started watching the Netflix series Trump: An
American Dream, Ruan is like Trump. Anne is no more likeable, Need I say more This is more like,but I'm rounding up because I have a Jewel soft spot,
I kind of have to start with the sex because, oh boy, is there a lot of it.
It starts with the hero taking the heroine's virginity in about the firstshe's drugged up on laudanum he doesn't realise.
I mean, the average romance has maybe three 'scenes', this one has tons I wasn't formally counting but in the region ofto.
And Jewel is good at sex, Despite their number they all worked well for me, undoubtedly, for some, it's going to be gratuitous for the sake of it.
Leaving aside the sex, how was the book I enjoyed it, but I'm not exactly sure why, because in a lot of ways it was lacking.
I'll start with what I know I liked, Lord Ruin. Or Ruan to use his silly given name, Or Duke Cynssyr I'm not sure Jewel understands quite how titles work, It doesn't bother me, but I know I'm not alone in this, He was a well fleshed out character, I understood him and his motivations, His affection for Anne and his substitution of love for sex was nicely done, His relationship with his friends was well handled, The dialogue and the setting is period appropriate,
There were some things that went unexplained and perhaps warranted proper exposition Ruan's involvement in the government and the reason for his playing the part of detective in relation to wellbred women going missing.
It's fine, I went with it, but I think Jewel trusts the reader to come to the correct conclusions and I'm far from certain I did.
And that's kind of the problem with this book in a nutshell, Everything is underplayed, under explained and to an extent under characterised, Perhaps Jewel's being terribly clever and subtle and it's passing me by, but to me, I needed to know more about everyone, to get a better sense of who they are and to know more about their lives, their motivations.
Anne, the heroine, I mean, I liked her, I'm just not sure she really had any personality, bar feeling less attractive than her sisters and distrusting any man who tried to make her believe otherwise.
She desperately wanted not to fall under Ruan's spell because she was afraid to have her heart broken, She gets more ballsy as time goes on but I was still left with this sense I was being told about her rather than having it shown.
I felt like I got to know more about Emily another of the Sinclair sisters finally getting her own book later this year! in the short moment of action at the end of the book than I'd learnt about Anne throughout.
In spite of that, I really liked reading this book, I liked reading about the love story growing from the marriage of convenience, There's serious heat between them and, as I said, great sex, The mystery about the disappearing girls was clumsily introduced and woven in but it did hold my attention and I followed the dramatic ending with interest.
I am looking forward to Devon and Emily's book I've already read the second in the series pregoodreads, perhaps I'll revisit and review.
Strange one this, sort of more than the sum of its parts for me, which is usually how I feel about Jewel.
I kinda liked this Ngl
An accidental pregnancy trope however this one had a major controversy, Whether it was rpor not,
In my opinion Im not to sure tbh,
So they are all in a house party of some sort, and the heroine breaks her ankle and she needs to be put in a private room, the only room available for that evening and that evening alone, is the heros bed room they are all under the assumption that he will arrive in the morning so they give her medicine to dull the pain which also addles her mind and they put her in the heros bed.
The hero arrives thats evening, but really late, in fact it might have been early morning by then, probsamish.
Anyways, he lets himself into the friends house and since its late he just goes to his room and doesnt let anyone know hes back I think this is rather a natural and reasonable thing to do.
So obviously he doesnt know about the change in room arrangement and he arrives to see a woman in his bed.
And here the issue transpires
From the heros point of view, there was a woman in his bed nothing unusual and we are told that his friend usually gets him a woman for the night and puts her in his room, so this was nothing out of the ordinary for him.
She is currently asleep drugged and he wakes her up, So obviously she under the influence and she doesnt really know whats going on, but she is communicating with him, hes asking her Questions and shes responding.
I think he get the okay, to have sex, but since shes drugged she doesnt know what shes agreeing to, and he obviously doesnt know that shes not a courtesan, and doesnt know that she is one of the house guest and that she is druggedso he does the deed.
But in the process, he finds out that shes a virgin and hes like what the fck but what annoys me is that instead of stopping, he tells himself that oh maybe my friend brought me a virgin courtesan or mistress to brush up on my skills for when I intend to take a wife.
or some stupid bull shit like that idiot, So the idiot continues his lovemaking
So the moment he climaxes was also the exact moment the heoines brotherinlaw walks in AND was also the moment the heroine passes out asleep.
So through out the whole love making she was awake and responding to his touches but then she passes out just as he finishes.
So from the brothers point of view he walks in to see how his sisterinlaw is doing, only to find her fast asleep whilst being fcked by his best friend specifically at the finishing time of his climax.
that makes the hero look so fucking badddddd, Gosh the horror. So it looks like the hero is making love to a drugged and unconscious house guest, so yeah he looks like a rpiT
So in the morning the heroine wakes up and doesnt remember shit, she only thinks she had the wildest dream of having sex with a handsome guy.
only to come down stairs to find the dream was a reality and that she is to be married in the evening.
. bless her. Coz truly she could be pregnantand well, she was. She didnt want to get married I dont think or she lost all hope of being marriageable at the age ofand was content to be a spinster, but now shes a duchess.
And her fathers a dickhead about it aswell, I think he manages to blame her for what has transpired even though it wasnt really her faultno it wasnt her fault at all!
So yeah they get married and live happily ever after i think I there was some mystery solving background case in the bookbut yea
.