Procure Lady Defiant (European Renaissance Duo, #2; Ladies, #3) Penned By Suzanne Robinson Issued As Publication

Hero was fine. His resistance was kinda bs but still,
But heroine I got mixed feelings for her,
I liked her personality, but I think she fell in love for wrong reasons, I mean, she liked him at first for his exterior, then she loved him cause she thought he loved her, Im not buying it. Lady Defiant was a great follow up to the excellent Lady Gallant, This was such an enjoyable and educational read because this author does not try to rewrite history by inserting modern anachronisms or social commentary in a historical time frame.
Highly recommended. I quite liked the book and found the writing style to reflect the times quite interestingly, There were the usual inconsistencies that pop up when a lady is portrayed as utterly intelligent but then acts a bit like a feather head,.An enjoyable read with likeable H and h, The romantic elements were a bit over the top, but fun with certain humorous scenes, Also, there were a number of fun swashbuckling scenes throughout, Definitely not to be taken seriously, in terms of realism, The strength lay in the historical details, during the reign of Elizabeth I: vocabulary amp characters' speech detailed depiction of various settings amp environments and best of all, political intrigue amp machinations by the Cardinal of Lorraine in an attempt to meddle in English affairs and put his niece Mary Stuart on the throne.
I feel kind of unfair giving this a low rating as it is well written and clearly wellresearched, But since the purpose of this account is for me to keep track of what I've read and what I do and don't like, I have to say, I couldn't really get into it.
The dialog was inth centuryspeak, and there was way too much of the suspense/intrigue/history subplot for my taste, I wanted to like it because it appeared to have a heroine that is not conventionally attractive, and while she does overhear the hero insulting her looks, the book doesn't really fall into the angsty theme that I like.
Oh well. Fun but not as fun as Lady Gallant, Similarities to Lady Gallant, even to the same rehashed joke about the hero's effect on women simply by walking into a room/chamber, However, Oriel is an amazing heroine and Blade's a sweet hero, Plot fizzles out is the main problem,

The first chapter is lovely, What an enjoyable meetcute Oriel simply drifts towards Blade, mesmerized by the sound of his voice, I love heroines who don't deny the attraction they have for the hero and fight for them, Oh, Blade's voice is very beautiful in this story, I'm not sure if this was mentioned in Lady Gallant but it is commented on many times in this novel, I've read two stories by Suzanne Robinson so far and I'm in so much delight over how she describes her heroes, There's physical admiration for male beauty that's not based on the strong, silent bro type, I love that Robinson's heroes have a natural grace to them and that they have a playful nature, Christian in Lady Gallant and in Lady Defiant constantly calls Blade marchpane marzipan or comfit, There are some lovely scenes where Oriel admires Blade's physical person and his voice I really enjoyed how much Oriel ogles him: "She had forgotten his name in her obsession with his person.
"

I think it's a relief from some romances that sometimes focuses too much on the male gaze, and how much the men see the women, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss's The Flame and the Flower is the worst offender of this, I'd like some more male objectification, thank you!

However, despite a promising intrigue about trying to prove Queen Elizabeth is illegitimate through Thomas Wyatt poems hello AP English Literature the first and last time I read whoso list to hunt!, the plot fizzles out.
Blade's very nice and his big thing is that he doesn't want to marry because he hates his dad, Even when Blade tells Oriel he was pretending to be a suitor, nobody buys it not even Oriel, Oriel's positivity is endearing. It leads her to believe Blade truly loves her time and time again, and how much she went after her man, It's a nice change of pace, especially if you had read Lady Gallant's mousy heroine, Nora, who truly hits rock bottom, I love Nora and felt more for her personal journey, Here, Oriel and Blade didn't have this deep passion since they both go into instalove and then spy stuff happens,

Suzanne Robinson does a great job setting up Derry for his own story, The way GoodReads organizes this series is confusing Ladies, St, John's I think it makes much more sense to understand this Elizabethan series as The Queen's Spies Quartet, as some of the reviewers have noted, DNF I can't get into this story, It's rather boring. May try later when I'm in the right mood Angsty Elizabethan spies YES PLS, I'm disappointed. This felt childish compared to the first book in both form and content, It gives me the impression of being written by a whole different author I love this author, you can tell she really is an anthropologist because she always educates us lool.

This part for example:

''The ceremony was a brief one, an exchange of de futuro vows in which each of them said “I will” in response to the chaplains questions.
He was relieved, for if the vows had been de praesenti, in which they would have responded “I do,” the betrothal would have been much harder to set aside.
He thanked the Lord for not making George more farsighted, ''

I knew the ''I do'' but the ''I will'' was a nice discovery,
Also, the langage used was very Tudor like, I hate when historical romances are too modern souding, Thank you author for keeping ''dick'' and ''cock'' from the book lool


Now the story: Blade was a tortured story who we first met in the first book with Nora and Christian.
I

read that years ago but I still remember the gang of Jack Midnight and the spies for the queen,
Blade is one of the spies, he has French and English ancestry and his mission is to get close to the Richmond family in order to obtain a secret document that will prevent a civil war.
He is planning to use Oriel as a tool, seduce her to gain access to her family secrets and then ditch her,
Problem is he starts lusting for her really hard and then fall in love,
We have the usual push and pull, and intrigues before we reach our happy ending,

My issue with the book was the intrigue taking a big chunk of the story, I don't mind intrigue, but when it starts taking over the romance I tend to lose interest and skim until it is over, And this is what happened here,
I loved the first half of the book when Oriel and Blade were teasing each over, I love how she didn't fall in his arms when he came after he first insulted her, and I love how creative he was in his seduction.
But the moment it turns into full spy mode, meh, . .

.rounding up to, because I loved the writing style and historical tidbits Overall Rating:, Action:/ Emotion:./ Romance:/ Sensuous:./ Intrigue: Historical Flavor:./ Laughter:/ Tears:

Really enjoyed Suzanne Robinson's second book of The Queen's Spies Quartet, Lady Defiant, She featured:an intelligent, gorgeous, hunky, alpha hero, whose tortured soul convinced him he was to remain alone forever after,A very strongwilled, determined, intelligent, 'will not be denied' heroine, who struggled with her own lack of selfworth,Plenty of action and adventure scenes that kept the story moving at a swift pace,A deep personal, emotional connection to the lead characters that lead to laughter and tears,A tense level of suspense permeated the entire story: a would Oriel ever convince Blade he was salvageable b would Blade and Oriel get the information they needed to save the queen from the Cardinal c who is the traitor in the Richmond family.
A constant sensual awareness flowed between Blade and Oriel, even thought the actual love scenes lacked heat and sizzle,A depth of historical accuracy about the life and activities of royal personages and their machinations duringinterwoven into the plot of the story,Interesting, wellwritten, truetolife secondary characters added a rich sense of family dynamics to the story,A toobrief mention of Christian and Nora from book one of the series, Wished Robinson had spent some time with Nora and Arthur,The introduction of Derry, the hero of book three Lady Valiant,

Although this series has not become a favorite, it is nevertheless, one well worth reading, Would readily recommend to any reader who enjoys the older Historical Romances, A more indepth, detailed review of Lady Defiant appears at sitelinkWolf Bear Does Books,

Caveat: Would recommend that the four books of The Queen's Spies Quartet be read in order, It is much easier to understand the connections between the characters and to follow the historical progression, SEDUCED
Oriel Richmond knew that her many lovelorn suitors were more taken with her fortune than with her beauty, Yet when she overheard the dark and roguish Blade Fitzstephenthe only man who had ever stirred her interestdescribe her in high unflattering terms, she was more than hurt, she was furious.
Never again would she be taken in by seductive words or searing glances, never again would she harbor dreams of love, . . until the day Blade returned to Richmond Hall to press his suit, and Oriel found herself responding against all reason,

BETRAYED
As the queen's most cunning spy, Blade knew where his duty lay, Sent to romance Oriel into revealing a dangerous secret the lovely innocent did not even know she possessed, he was prepared to go to any lengths to captivate her.
But when tragedy struck, Blade found himself drawn to Oriel in ways he had never before experienced, And now, as he and Oriel plunge headlong into a heartstopping race to keep a deadly enemy from the throne of England, Blade tastes the heady sweetness of desire.
. . and the danger of love, SEDUCED

Oriel Richmond knew that her many lovelorn suitors were more taken with her fortune than with her beauty, Yet when she overheard the dark and roguish Blade Fitzstephenthe only man who had ever stirred her interestdescribe her in highly unflattering terms, she was more than hurt, she was furious.
Never again would she be taken in by seductive words or searing glances, never again would she harbor dreams of love, . . until the day Blade returned to Richmond Hall to press his suit, and Oriel found herself responding against all reason,

BETRAYED

As the queen's most cunning spy, Blade knew where his duty lay, Sent to romance Oriel into revealing a dangerous secret the lovely innocent did not even know she possessed, he was prepared to go to any lengths to captivate her.
But when tragedy struck, Blade found himself drawn to Oriel in ways he had never before experienced, And now, as he and Oriel plunge headlong into a heartstopping race to keep a deadly enemy from the throne of England, Blade tastes the heady sweetness of desire.
. . and the danger of love,
I picked this one up because I loved Lady Gallant so much and this belongs to the same series, I saw a bit of the magic here but it really isn't as good as that one, I think the main problem is that they spend too much time together at first we know from the beginning that Blade's intentions towards Oriel are not good, For a while we live in suspense of when she will realise that, The problem is that it takes too long for it to happen, It ruins the suspense and when he finally disappoints/hurts her there's little time left to make up for it, It should be the other way around, . . great tension and suspense for a while and then clarifying things and spending the rest of the book grovelling and working on their problems,

Also the mystery would have worked much better that way, Discovering who the bad guy was might have been the way of bringing Blade and Oriel together after their confrontation, As it is I was left wondering why Oriel would want to help Blade after she discovers he has been deceiving her all the time, She was really distrustful in the beginning so it's hard to believe she would just forgive him or be compelled to help him overcoming her hurt,

Grade: B Nowhere near as captivating as Lady Gallant,

Christian, asshole that he is, stole the show in the few scenes he was in, I admit I was curious to know what happened to Blade after reading the first book, I enjoyed this installment and loved the intrigue and plot machinations, I also liked the hare and the hound chase between Blade and Oriel, Hmmm the question is: who is the hound and who is the hare :D The young Queen Elizabeth I is now on the throne, The French Cardinal of Lorraine would like to see his niece, Mary Queen of Scotts, as Queen of England instead, He's aware that there exists a piece of information that might just topple Elizabeth, thus opening the way for Mary, her heir presumptive,

Blade FitzStephen is a spy in Elizabeth's service, He wants to get his hands on the information before the Cardinal does, and believes that the heroine, Oriel Richmond, might hold the key to it, albeit unwittingly, To gain entree into her home, he shows up as a suitor paying court to Oriel, He plans to use her to get the information, destroy the information, and then vanish, She falls deeply in love with him, and he proposes marriage to her to keep up the charade, He also falls in love with her, but has vowed never to marry because of his troubled past,

This author is a really fine writer, She so seamlessly wove her history into the story that I felt as if I was immersed in the Tudor period, Her research is impressive, and her history isn't an information dump or encyclopedia, but another character, She creates wonderful, multifaceted secondary characters who enrich the story of the hero and heroine, And she has written one of my all time favorite books, sitelinkLady Gallant, which is the first book in this series, So why onlystars

I would certainly give this book,if I could. My problem is that it's mainly a suspense story a very good suspense story and the suspense moves at a rapid pace, The romance is given less attention, and doesn't receive as much time as the suspense, I liked both Blade and Oriel, but in the second half of the book Oriel suddenly turned into a Tudor kickass warrior maiden, rushing off on rescue missions into places like enemy France.
It just seemed out of character and an abrupt personality transition, especially since she had no arms training or combat knowledge, This heroine who was supposed to be highly intelligent and quite an accomplished scholar just seemed to go from one stupid escapade to another from that point on, So, the historical and suspense aspects of this book are very well done, but I felt the author really short changed the romance and the heroine, .