and France mostly.
Alex, in shipping, amp Gwen knew each other for ages,
He was best friends of her late brother, Gwen, dtr of a
late Leeds chemist, inheritedM in British pounds, Alex
came across as cynical and rude amp Gwen deserved better
treatment from him,
Men valued Gwen for her wealth butjilted her, The leads
shared angst which at times disturbed the pace of the story,
Alex took too long to admit his feelings, About/in, I was
ready for a new bk, Alex initiated an unforgiveable action,
w/o informing Gwenst, She suffered scorn and pity as a
consequence,
IMO, this author has written much better books,.Stars. This was a buddy read with Loriidae and Mariana in Historical Romance Book Ckub, Thanks ladies!
Ok, well, this book had some high highs and some low lows saying that sounds much better than seeing it written.
It had plot issues, but there was some time spent in Moulin Rogue and Le Chat Noir, which was fabulous.
There was some great character growth moments, but sometimes that felt like it had no direction, The first half made great strides humanizing and lifting up naive and bratty Gwen while keeping Alex down, only to switch focus in the second half.
As a result, Alex is the better drawn character in my opinion, I didnt understand her latebook antics much, and I didnt come away with a warm fuzzy happy feeling.
The thing is, I would read this again, I love the highs too much, the phrasing at moments that
simply get to me, It has value despite the issues, which is why I read Duran, I highlightedlocations for crying out loud,
“But what youre saying, then, is that youve always thought me a very clever hypocrite.
”
“No. Well, perhaps,” he said with a grin, “But if hypocrisy is what the game requires, who am I to judge a hypocrite”
“How flattering,” she said dryly.
Honestly, that is how I feel about this book, I dont know that I like it, but I sort of love it,
./. The extra half is for the humorous banter and because it is Duran, but rounded down because the plot got more ridiculous as the book progressed.
Oh, Meredith Duran.
I started reading this this morning, thinking no big deal, just spend a couple hours here and there.
Er, no. That's never quite the way that works,
This book is a lighter Duran, though her humor always sparkles, I loved watching Gwen coming into her own and being challenged by Alex, and they were so so lovely together.
It was part adventure/road tripwhich I really enjoyed, When Duran sets a scene, they can sure sparkle, I just overall enjoyed this ride, This is the fourth Meredith Duran book I've read and I'm still so up in the air about her as an author.
I can see why others rave about her books, but most of the time I find her prose confusing to read and her characters eversoslightly unbelievable.
After reading great reviews of Wicked Becomes You, I thought this might be the book that would turn me into a fangirl.
It wasn't. First off, the prologue was written in such convoluted prose that I had to read it through a few times to figure out what was going on.
The best friend was dead, yes, but did the hero do it If not, why all the guilt And the somehow fought over the best friend's sister, but that's not involved at all in his guilt Ugh.
That's pretty much how the whole book went, What's more, the characters especially the hero kept acting in unexpected, ridiculous ways, One minute he would be the overprotective alpha, while the next he's hatched some plan that has the heroine posing as his mistress so he can track down a villain.
A villain who, incidentally, also seemed thrown in just to move the characters from place to place, instead of acting as an actual nefarious threat.
The subplots were unnecessary, the characters acted very oddly, and she still hasn't grasped the clarity of writing that I normally expect.
This is probably the last Duran book I'll buy, even if the glowing reviews keep coming in.
She is just not an author for me, First, I let me just say how much I love the cover of this book! When I got it, I spent a moment just admiring its coverthe lush purple color of her gown is so pretty and they even got Gwen's red hair right getting small details like that correct on covers is always a plus.
But pretty cover aside, I absolutely loved Wicked Becomes You WBY! This is only the second book I've read by Ms.
Duran the first being her debut book Duke of Shadows which I also really enjoyed and now I want to read her other books.
She has a talent for penning romances set in exotic places with interesting, multidimensional leads who makes you root for their happy ending.
Our heroine is Gwen Maudsley, the nicest debutante and also the richest with a fortune of three million poundsboth of which almost makes everyone forget that her family is of the merchant class.
After Gwen's second fiance jilts her at the altar the first fiance having done the same, she decided she is done with being nice and wants to experience life without the silly rules and restrictions of the ton.
And who better to guide her than her late brother's best friend Alex, a younger brother of an earl and a businessman with a wicked reputation.
Both Gwen and Alex were really likable characters and as the story goes on you begin to see that beneath the surface there is more to them than being "the nice girl" and "the rake," which makes this book an engaging read.
On the other hand, the secondary characters weren't as strong as the leads but I can forgive the book that because I love Gwen and Alex so much.
Their adventures takes them from London to Paris and Nice and even to Monte Carlo, I appreciate the varied settings of the book as it's not often I read a historical romance not set in London.
WBY is one of the best historical romances I've read this year and I highly recommend this book.
Whereas DoS is dark and emotional read, WBY is much lighter there were a couple of laugh out loud moments in this book yet it doesn't lack the emotion.
If you're looking for a wellwritten, lighter historical romance with a great hero and heroine, this is your book.
.starsthe writing was really good, but a little wordy for my taste,
I have been looking at this book for a month or two, then apparently all of my GR friends read it at once, because there were updates everywhere.
So, after reading a few really good reviews and one or two crappy reviews I came to my friend Catherine's review:
sitelink goodreads. com/review/show/
Her review made me want to read this book, In face I'm almost tempted to cut and paste hers here for you instead of me writing,
Catherine's review is one of the only ones I saw that pointed out Gwen's change, She is a beautiful and extremely wealthy debutante, who has been jilted twice at the altar, Goodness me the scandal! But she has through it all remained London's sweetheart, Very kind, always perfect in society, never a cruel word, and always the epitome of all a lady should be.
The back of the book makes it sound a bit like Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake, and while I loved that book to death, I don't want to read the same story by a different author.
But I was wrong. It's not similar at all,
The back blurb basically says that Gwen is tired of being everyone's sweetheart, so she decides to be wicked.
Okay, yes and no.
Gwen is worthmillion pounds, A freaking fortune, and yet twice, she's been jilted and both grooms were flat broke, so thinking it's her, poor Gwen behaves more flawlessly amongst Society.
By the second jilting where the groom literally leaped over the balcony and ran off, she is done being nice.
If my favorite Lady Anne one of her bridesmaids volunteers Gwen for knitting sweaters for orphans then Lady Anne can bloody well knit them herself.
That tiny rebellion cracked me up!
And this is where I started to see Catherine's point from her review
"While trying to explain this book to a friend of mine I realized how cliched and trite it sounds to explain how Gwen decided to live for herself and stop trying to be so nice after she's jilted for the second time.
I realize that the good girl gone bad seems like it's been done a million times before, but that's not how this storyline came across at all.
It's not a story of Gwen going bad and starting to hang out with a rake, it's a story about Gwen growing up and dealing with her issues and learning who she is as a person.
Along the way she falls in love with a man who is so much more than his surface personality would suggest.
"
Keeping that in mind while watching Gwen not just become wicked or wickedly becoming but watching Gwen find herself was the true joy in this book.
And watching Alex see Gwen for the first time, not as his friend Richard's little sister, but as a woman, and a sensual, sexual one at that, it was fabulous.
I loved how he realized that he'd been in love with her since she was a teenager, and how obvious it was to him that all the times he'd encouraged Richard to speak of Gwen, it was for himself as well.
Alex both infuriated and intrigued me, I loved the scene in the library, and I loved seeing Gwen grow, Alex needed his expectations of Gwen shot down, and the way he handled it was great,
There was only one part that seemed a bit off to me,
small spoiler ahead
At Gwen's second wedding, Lady Anne seemed desperately in love with the groom, and it was said that she'd nursed feelings for him before, and she was super bitchy to Gwen.
So at the end when she visits Gwen to tell her why her groom had turned tail and run, it's because he's in love with a German man.
I could care less that he was interested in men, I feel it was built up to look like Anne and he would get together.
I was certain that Anne was there to tell Gwen that they'd gotten married, I don't mind a twist or a surprise , but it felt so random,
Other than that, it was a great book, and I cried at the last line, It was very touching. I only wish I'd seen Gwen actually get a wedding, Maybe an epilogue
sitelink demonloversbooksandmore. co Buddy Read with Loriidae and Joanna,
sitelink goodreads. com/topic/show/ I was a bit leery when I started this book, My first Meredith Duran book was sitelinkThe Duke of Shadows and I absolutely loved that book, I couldn't wait to read the next two, sitelinkBound by Your Touch and sitelinkWritten on Your Skin.
I did enjoy them, but I never had any connection to the story, I felt very removed from the characters and their issues, When this came out I hesitated, but in the end I bought it anyway, I am so glad that I decided to! Once again I felt that connection that immerses me in the story and makes me become invested in the characters and their relationship.
When the story opens you might think that Gwen and Alex are an unlikely pair, However, as the story progresses the author shows us more and more of their layers and we realize just how perfectly they do fit.
Alex and Gwen have a sizzling chemistry between them, What's even better than that is way they develop into friends, I'm so glad that the author made them meshing personalitywise just as important and their sexual chemistry, There were some great scenes in this book, and some excellent banter between the protagonists,
While trying to explain this book to a friend of mine I realized how cliched and trite it sounds to explain how Gwen decided to live for herself and stop trying to be so nice after she's jilted for the second time.
I realize that the good girl gone bad seems like it's been done a million times before, but that's not how this storyline came across at all.
It's not a story of Gwen going bad and starting to hang out with a rake, it's a story about Gwen growing up and dealing with her issues and learning who she is as a person.
Along the way she falls in love with a man who is so much more than his surface personality would suggest.
I loved the scene toward the end where everyone was gathered in the library trying not to give spoilers.
I loved watching Alex try to deal with all his assumptions turning out wrong, I felt bad for him but also found it rather humorous, I sympathized with them both but was also kind of proud of Gwen, Toward the end when I found out why she did that I was kind of surprised, That wasn't what I thought the issue was, but oh well it still worked for me because it made sense.
I highly recommend this book, but I do have to admit it wasn't perfect, The whole situation with property was kind of a letdown, At the end when everything was figured out it still didn't seem that intelligent to me, I guess I just expected that to make a bit more sense, .