were lovely little pieces loosely connected in that they all take place in the same realm and people appear or are mentioned across stories, but they are standalones nevertheless.
The book comes full circle in the end, when we meet the first couple againyears later, Megan Derr sure knows how to entertain It's so rare when you come across an anthology of stories where EVERY story is an equal weighted,
I think it's only ever happened once before, for me,
Now, I know these stories have been slightly adapted and rereleased, with new covers etc, but I didn't know that when I bought the paperback a few months ago.
I was right in the middle of a binge of Megan Derr works, and needed to topup my basket on Amazon to get free delivery it's much better to pay it for a book, than for delivery and this gem popped up in my price range.
It was Megan Derr, and it was the right price, so it was mine!
It was fate,
I loved EVERY, SINGLE. STORY. Every word. Every page. Every character.
. Deceived
My, the snark in this story was just sublime! So much UST, So much of everything I love about Megan Derr's fantasy works, Benedict and Rae were an ideal match, and I loved them both utterly and completely from start to finish,
The teasing, the chemistry, how they resolved the deception, Perfection.
. Scandalous
First off, I was thrilled that all the stories would be linked by the same world and with character crossovers, That just made itx better, for me,
Pierce was adorable, and I fell in love with him entirely, Tem and Gideon were shudderingly perfect together, The fencing was
. From Afar
Ugh, as if Pierce wasn't adorable enough in Scandalous, he actually got his own story Shut, TF. Up! The whole secret love letters was beautiful, Cressida was an evil bitch at the end, but it was just as well or there might never have been any resolution whatsoever, The romance was exactly the right balance for Pierce, Silver was such a lovely character!
Lessons
I absolutely LOVED Crispin and his innocent naivety, his bravery, From head to toe, he was wonderful, And Jude was a loveable rogue, The perfect balance of romantic and seductive, The lessons were so well done, never overdone or silly,
. The Highwayman
The longest story of the bunch, with a nicely twisty plot, it was everything I could have wanted for the gruff and loveable Bart, Perry was intriguing and wonderful, alternately sad and sexy, Perhaps my favourite story of the bunch, because it was so extensively explored, meaning we got to get much more deeply attached to the characters and their story,
I absolutely positively adored the extra bonus short for Thaddeus and Alfred, It wouldn't have been the same without it, Lots of shorter novellas I think like six These are set in a Regencyesque setting where samesex relationships are fine, no one bats an eye, They are all interconnected, and I just had a fun time with them, There are a bunch of little short stories about some of the couples in the back of the book, as well, which was fun and very fanficcy,.: loved all the stories! SWORDS : I can't even begin to tell you just how much I enjoyed this, Sweet, charming tales of princes, lords and love, I guess my favorite one was the Cinderellalike story of Rae and Benedict, The temper Rae has! Other then him, I fell in love with his exact opposite, that hopeless romantic Silver St, Rose. I totally recommend to read one of the additional shorties set in 'Deceived' universe on Megan's page the letter from the 'Star'! Well, actually read all of them :D they're worth it.
Enjoyable
Deceived
,Stars
I liked this one with Benedict and Rae, I liked that they were both volatile
I enjoyed their sparring matches, and how they were once they both saw underneath their masks, "
Scandalous
.Stars
I enjoyed this one, but not as much as the first one,
I liked all the characters both individually and together,
The relationship between the brothers was lovely once they cleared up all the miscommunications"
Afar
,Stars
I enjoyed this one, I liked seeing Pierre all grown up and his own man, Although it is a short story and there is only so much that can be fit in, I wished for more of the MCs actually together, The main part of the story line revolved around the who is it and once that was resolved it finished quickly, Even with that it is still one of my favourites so far in this book
Lessons
,Stars
I did enjoy this one and really liked Crispin but it wasn't my favourite for this book, Even though we got to see things through Jude's eyes I didn't feel like we got enough of the two f them together, They started out the lessons and then it jumpedmonths in advance, so we really missed a lot of their time together and seeing how the relationship progressed to where it ended up"
Seconds
stars
This one is my favourite so far.
I liked the premises of Haven and Lex getting to know each other while trying to guard their young charges, and I also liked that they were unsure of each other, but once they had it out, sorted it out in one go.
"
The Wager
stars
I liked going back and seeing how Lazare and Maitland got together,
I thought a lot was packed in to this story and really gave me a feel for both characters and how they got together, I liked both guys. Being a shorter story some storylines were dropped and never picked back up, "
Runaways
Stars
I loved Jewell and Addison, I think i have a thing for mistaken identities etc because it just worked for me, I felt for Addy as everyone in his life put him down and i also felt for Jewell, The parents in this one were all horrid, Addy's dad made up for it at the end, but wow the boys were better off on their own, I really enjoyed seeing Rae and Benedict again and how their lives have gone"
Aread, Really enjoyed the way that each of the stories were linked in this anthology, although there were a couple which seemed to have some similarities to them, My faves were Deceived and The Highwayman, Overall Rating:.stars
Deceived,stars
Scandalous,stars
From Afarstars
Lessonsstars
The HighwaymanNew edition of Regency by Megan Derr, The stories in both anthologies are the same,
Deceivedstars
Scandalous,stars
From Afar,stars
Lessons This one is fabulous! A story of a rake, who bored with life decides to amuse himself by teaching a young man the art of seduction.
A must read!
The Highwayman
Overall rating stars
Read twice so far, Will read this anthology again,
Highly recommended. Overall .
I originally read the paperback of this, in July, just before LTP closed and the books were removed to be republished, I LOVED it. I loved the characters, each individual story was easilyfor me, and I forgave some editing issues because the stories shone,
When I saw they were being republished, I purchased ALL the books in the series, because the blurb mentioned extra content, for stories I already loved, so of course it was a given I'd want to read it.
Honestly I'm disappointed.
Maybe it's time or the changes, but it didn't have the same shine as before,
First EDITING.
I won't sugarcoat it, because it would be pointless, The editing is a mess, I mean, I compared this to my paperback edition and the NEW changes are the problem, There are silly, little, annoying mistakes like missing words, bad spelling, bad grammar, that really ruin the story, There is at least twice as many editing problems as my original paperback edition, because, . . and I'm going to be brutally honest here, . . it feels like the new work hasn't been edited at all, e. g. strange gt stranger / these free nights gt these three nights /kjinclined gt inclined There is also a consistent problem of missing quotation marks at the beginning of scenes/paragraphs.
Then there's the editing of the original parts, I'm HUGELY disappointed that one glaring problem wasn't resolved Lady Q, I wasn't the only person who pointed this out, in the original stories, but it's super lazy to not
bother naming secondary characters, It wouldn't take any effort at all to name Lord K and Lady Q properly, A simple replaceall in the document would get it done, But it wasn't done, and that's frustrating,
I mean, if you're going to go to all the trouble of rewriting the stories, updating the stories, adding new stories, making new covers and adding extra scenes to stories.
. . the least you can do is fix this one, simple problem that everyone pointed out in reviews,
EXTRA CONTENT
,
Hmm. Honestly I don't feel like any of it was necessary, Extending the stories seems to have been only for the purpose of adding more sex, I happened to like the historical fadetoblack choice made in the first edition, with some minor exceptions that added heat and spice where appropriate, This time, there are extra scenes at the back that are basically just excuses to include sex scenes,
.
I also didn't like the choice to include the "extra" bonus shorts at the back, There was no reason they couldn't have been used to EXPAND on the original story, or be slipped in when appropriate, It felt choppy and disjointed to include them at the back when it wouldn't have taken much effort to weave them into the main story, and it would have made more sense of the circumstances they mentioned, as well.
.
The new stories were, . . lacklustre. For me, I didn't feel like they added anything new or exciting, The only one that had any real relevance to the world and characters I already loved, was Runaways, HOWEVER, I honestly didn't like what was done to Benedict in that story, We ended Deceived feeling hopeful for Benedict's future with Rae, that they were strong enough to withstand the storm together and fight to be with each other, It was a GREAT ending, In the original story.
The new story adds an extra sex scene that doesn't contribute to the story much, but was fine, Then Runaways goes and undoes ALL of that goodwill they'd built with each other, to show themYEARS after the events of Deceived, . . and mentions that they're STILL being hounded by the past, This completely ruined the original story, for me, I literally hated what was done to Benedict, and how it was used as a means to give Jewell a similar storyline, but giving him the HEA I thought Benedict had found.
I also found it confusing, and somewhat annoying, that Benedict wasn't named in Runaways until well into the story, as if we weren't supposed to realise that it was Benedict, or that it was supposed to be a huge surprise.
Except, mentioning a royal who ran off with a secretary makes it pretty obvious that's who was meant, so, . . yeah, not seeing the point of that, really,
All the new stories are too short, Every time we start to learn about a new couple, it's a madrush to get them together and into bed, then they're abandoned just as the story is getting good.
Some of them had huge potential to be better explored, but were just ignored, I wanted to know what happened to Otis and Henry, with their enemiestolovers hinted story, but we got nothing of them and everything of two people who were barely fleshed out or interesting.
I also don't understand why Runaways was included here, as it completely messed up the timeline for Highwayman, As far as I remember, Highwayman takes place while Bart is still in hiss/s, but Runaways takes placeyears AFTER the events of that story, so, . . I'm really confused.
In some stories, the timeline flow is completely random, There is no mention of timeline between scenes, but pages in you find out it's beendays or a few weeks, without any warning, I also feel like some really interesting events that had huge potential were completely sidelined for the sake of the 'romance', Things like Jewell meeting the King, and Addison and Jewell travelling together were things I really wanted to see play out on page, but they were skipped over entirely.
OVERALL
I felt the new shorts were TOO short, that they didn't add much to the collection, as a whole, and the connections between them were weak.
The original stories were all linked by a social circle or family members, and it worked well, This version has weak connections between the original stories and the new extras, and I barely recognised the Bartholomew from the Highwayman in the shorts that were added here.
He felt like a completely different character,
Runaway was the best of the new stories, but promptly ruined that feeling when it completely changed Benedict's fate and made out that he suffered beyond falling in love with Rae.
It ruined the HEA that was left wideopen with hope and strength, in the original version,
Honestly, I feel like this republication is a fanfic version of the original stories, It's like the author spent a lot of time revisiting these characters and stirring up trouble, for whatever reason, as their own personal fanfic of the world and original stories.
But to publish them without proper links, without addressing previous issues, and with lacklustre editing, feels like I wasted my money,
When it comes to these characters, I'll be rereading the ORIGINAL book, not this one,
While the cover is pretty, I just feel frustrated that a collection of stories I loved have been toyed with and changed in a way that doesn't make them better, but which ruins the good memories the originals gave me.
As for the new stories, they're not good enough to bring me back to reread them, and I wish more time and effort had been spent on fleshing out the stories rather than adding disjointed extras.
.
Peruse Deceived And Other Tales (Deceived, #1) Created By Megan Derr In Physical Edition
Megan Derr