Scandal in the Spring

Wallflowers Series - Book 4

Author: Lisa Kleypas


Daisy Bowman is a dreamer. She knows she's the odd one in the family, everyone else is so practical and driven while she's content to watch clouds and pick out the shapes she sees in them. She loves whimsical things and and fantastical novels. When her father brought her and her sister, Lillian, to England to find aristocratic husbands, Daisy wasn't overly concerned. So long as she wasn't separated from her sister, she didn't much mind it. Though she did wish she might find a gentleman who was a bit of a dreamer too, someone who would understand her a little, but as the season draws to a close with no real prospective husband on the horizon, her father begins to become impatient to return to his business in America and begins to chafe at all the money wasted on an investment that doesn't look to make a return. He gives Daisy an ultimatum. Find a husband by the end of the month or marry his protege, Mr. Matthew Swift. There is no one Daisy would rather marry less than a cold-blooded business man who is an exact replica of her father. Much less one that will see her back in America, an entire ocean away from her sister. With the help of her sister, the rest of the Wallflowers and their husbands, she hopes they can save her from Mr. Swift. Even if he is looking a great deal more attractive than she remembers.

Matthew Swift isn't the man everyone thinks he is. He is a man with secrets. One of those secrets is the fact that he has been in love with Daisy Bowman from the moment he first set eyes on her, but his other secrets make any life with Daisy impossible. From the time he was an adolescent, and Mr. Bowman all but adopted him, he's looked up to the man and striven to be a successful business man like him. He knows that none of the Bowman's children like him, Daisy maybe least of all. She thinks him a carbon copy of her father, who disapproves of her fanciful nature, but the truth is that Matthew loves every quirky thing about her. When Mr. Bowman summons him to England for business he knows it will be hard for him seeing Daisy after all this time and doubtless surrounded by suitors, but she'll marry some aristocrat and he'll go back to America where he won't have to see her with another man. All he has to do is keep his feelings in check and hidden from everyone, shouldn't be too hard, he's been doing it for years. He just didn't bargain on how hard it would be watch another man court her or that Daisy might begin seeing him in a different light altogether. How can he resist the girl of his dreams? And resist he must because the secrets of his past are finally catching up to him.



Matthew's secret was pretty darn major. I thought that the untangling of it was kind of brief. I was kind of surprised that Mr. Bowman and his wife reacted the way they did to learning about his secret. Much cooler than I thought them capable of being. I could understand why Matthew thought that there was no future for him with Daisy, but I think that he just wasn't thinking it through enough. If he hadn't slipped up with his dad then he would have been perfectly safe to start a life in England, farther from the man who was looking for him and, since he did not know that his father had told where to find him, it would have been perfectly understandable for him to seriously consider it. I wish he would have told Daisy himself instead of having her find out the way she did. I found it annoying that Daisy never thought to give Matthew the time of day until he showed up in England looking all fit and attractive. By her own admission, she was never nice to him and yet when she sees him again, she is instantly attracted to him and agitated at the thought that he isn't interested in her. To me it makes her seem a bit petty and shallow. She never tried to get to know him when he was a bit gawky, but she disliked him anyway.

The Devil in Winter

Wallflowers Series - Book 3

Author: Lisa Kleypas


Evangeline Jenner is the daughter of Ivo Jenner, former boxer and proprietor of a gaming hell called Jenner's. Her mother was from an upper class family, but met Jenner after a near miss accident involving her family's coach. She ran away with him and eloped. She went to her family before her daughter was born and dies during childbirth. Thought Evie was allowed to visit her father, she was raised by her mother's family. They treated her terribly and were not above beating or starving her to bend her to their will. She's always believed that marriage was her only way out of her terrible situation, but she's got so much working against her, chiefly the fact that her shyness causes her to stammer when speaking. Usually the more attractive the gentleman trying to talk to he is, the worse she stutters. She knows her odds are slim at best, but maybe with the help of her fellow Wallflowers, she might find a kind gentleman to marry. Then she finds out that her father, whom she hasn't been allowed to see in months, is at death's door and that her relatives plan to marry her off to a cousin so that they can keep her father's money. She also suspects they may kill her shortly after getting the money. She desperately needs a husband and there is only on man whom she knows who needs a rich wife just as desperately.


Sebastian, Viscount St. Vincent, has made women and the pursuit of pleasure his life's work, unfortunately for him, it isn't the sort of work that pays well. His father has squandered away the family fortune and St. Vincent needs to marry an heiress before his creditors come calling. A task he's made harder on himself by attempting to kidnap and force a marriage on Lillian Bowman, an heiress, a Wallflower, and the Duke of Westcliff's fiance. All he managed to get out of the deal was a severe beating and the loss of his best friend, the a fore mentioned Duke of Westcliff. When the stuttering, red-headed Wallfloer, Evie Jenner, showed up on his doorstep, all he felt was annoyance. When she proposed that they elope immediately, he was definitely suspicious, but a man in his position could hardly afford to pass up such an opportunity. They agree that Evie shall have a portion of the money for herself and they'll live separate lives, but once St. Vincent gets a look at Jenner's club, he starts to see an entirely new future opening before him ... a future that just might include such foreign concepts as fidelity and love.


Some of you may recognize Ivo Jenner as Derek Craven's nemesis in Dreaming of You. I always love it when author's do things like this, bring secondary characters from other books/series in to newer. It makes you feel more realistic. I mean, you've got all these character's living in certain areas, it's likely they're crossed paths, especially when you're talking about the aristocracy and upper classes. They tended to travel in the same circles. I'm not sure how I felt about St. Vincent, especially after the doings in the previous book, It Happened One Autumn. I was glad to know that he never would have made good his threat to rape Lillian, but he still shackled her to a bed and threatened to rape her. Yes, Westcliff's mother probably would have had Lillian killed if St. Vincent hadn't agreed to take her, but he could have easily taken her to a safe place and let Westcliff know what was going on. If he'd thought it through, even for a moment, he would have seen how impossible the whole scheme was. He started out being rather prick-ish to Evie, which was at times incongruous with the kindnesses he showed her, but for someone who is supposed to be a hardened libertine, he changes course rather suddenly. With most characters like St. Vincent when we see a change it's because they've become weary of their life style or something drastic has happened o cause them to rethink they're whole way of life. These things happen with St. Vincent, but neither of them seems big enough to cause such a change, and certainly not as suddenly as it did. I think I needed more of a redemption for him than I got. Eve was great. I like how she didn't do what most heroines do an give in to lust and sleep with St. Vincent regardless of her concerns. Sometimes I get so tired of the heroine who knows the guy is bad news and has decided that sleeping with him is a bad thing, yet the moment the hero comes within arms reach her clothes fall off and her legs flop open like she's some mindless blow-up doll. Evie wanted him and loved him, but she stuck to her guns until she felt it was right to sleep with him.

It Happened One Autumn

Wallflowers Series - Book 2

Author: Lisa Kleypas


Lillian Bowman is the daughter of a rich American industrialist who's trying to buy his way in to the upper class by offering a sizable dowry to any man of suitable pedigree who's willing to marry his daughters. A fact so well known that in New York, where the girls are from, that they've coined the phrase "Marry Lillian and get a million". Now the girls are in England and they've got a season to find aristocratic husbands. Their father is doing business with the Earl of Westcliff and they're spending a month at his country estate. Lillian would be perfectly happy to enjoy the beautiful estate if it weren't for the arrogant, uptight earl who disapproves of just about everything she does. When he isn't mauling her, that is.


Lord Marcus Westcliff, Earl of Westcliff, is very interested in machinery and believes that industry is the future. Unlike his peers, who are desperately trying to hold on to their "superiority", Westcliff embraces industry and fosters it whenever possible. It is this that brings him in contact with Mr. Thomas Bowman, a soap magnate, father to Lillian and Daisy Bowman. He wishes to talk Mr. Bowman in to opening a branch of his business in England. Marcus could only wish that dealing with Mr. Bowman did not entail having to deal with Lillian Bowman. He finds Lillian to be arrogant, domineering, manipulative, and prone to inappropriate behavior. In other words, a complete hellion! There is nothing at all to recommend her. Why then has he suddenly been struck by this inability to keep his hands off of her?



I don't know how I felt about this perfume thing and how Westcliff disliked her intensely one moment and then was all over her the next. Only to retreat then maul her again. I understand that Westcliff's dad was an abusive jerk who tried to beat any sign of weakness or emotion out of him as a boy, but he seemed to be pretty self-aware, except apparently when it came to Lillian and what he wanted from her. That seen where he comments that a man who has sex more than once a week has too much time on his hands in a room with two recently married men and a complete libertine is just so funny to me. I liked that Lillian was of stronger character even though she did occasionally fall in to the trap of making stupid choices just to prove she was capable. Only one of those moments, the one with the horse riding, made me think she was pulling a TSTL. I'll admit that the whole thing with St. Vincent was a shocker. Did not see it coming! I know it was mentioned repeatedly that he was completely lacking in morals and untrustworthy, often by St. Vincent himself, but I still did not expect it to go the way it did. They mentioned the time he stole a woman from Westcliff, but I saw it as a favor to him. I figured that St. Vincent knew what that woman was about and that she was wrong for Westcliff so when she tried to use him to make Westcliff jealous, he seduced her so that there would be no chance of her snaring Westcliff. I still see it that way, even after the boneheaded thing he did with Lillian.

Evie's story is next and St. Vincent is slated to be the hero in that one. I'm reserving judgment on just how he's going to be redeemed after this. Here's hoping.

Secrets of a Summer Night

Wallflower Series - Book 1

Author: Lisa Kleypas


Annabelle Peyton getting desperate. Her father's death has left her family in dire straits. What little money they have goes mainly toward putting her younger brother to school and keeping her looking as fashionable as possible on their meager budget in hopes that she will catch a wealthy husband. Even though she is beautiful and gently bred, she has reached the age of 25 and this will be her last season, her last chance to save her family before she's forced to do something ruinnous, like accepting the protection of one of the many "gentlemen" who have begun to circle like vultures. She knows there is no coming back from that and so she'll do whatever she has to do to catch a husband, even if it means going along with two outrageous Americans and a mousy red-head who stutters in a scheme crazy enough to work. They're tired of being wallflowers and all in need of husbands for various reasons, so why not pool their resources and join forces to get them each a husband one at a time. After all, what man could stand against the combined cunning and determination of four marriage minded women? If only that dreadful cit, Simon Hunt would stop asking her to dance and making inappropriate propositions that remind her all too well of that one time, years ago, when he kissed her in a darkened amphitheater. Yes, he's got obscene amounts of money, but he's not of her class and she knows he's not the marrying kind. The Wallflowers have set their sights on a rich viscount who seems very sweet and kind. They've got their strategy all mapped out and they'll have that gentleman caught in a compromising position before before he knows what hit him.

Simon Hunt was born the son of a butcher, but you couldn't tell it by his fine clothes, bulging bank account and thriving businesses. He's got more money and connections than some aristocrats can boast and he's gotten there through ambition, hard work, and determination. What Simon Hunt wants, he gets. He's been fascinated with Annabelle Peyton from the first moment he saw her. He's never been able to forget the time he went to an amphitheater with Annabelle and her brother. The lights went down for a few minutes and there, in the dark, he gave in to the urge to kiss her. He expected to be pushed away and slapped, but instead she gave in and kissed him back. He's spent the last two years since that kiss trying to get her alone. He knows her family's financial situation and when she finally gives up on marriage she'll need a protector. Simon plans to be that man, no matter how many other gentlemen he's got to take down to do it. When rumors first surface that she's already taken a protector, an unsavory man who apparently gives her just enough to get by on, Simon is sure it's all a lie, but during a house party in the country, there seems to be an odd sort of tension between Annabelle and the man purported to be her protector. Could it be true? When Annabelle is poisoned by an adder bite, Simon diagnoses and treats her before the doctor even gets there. He realizes after the ordeal that he might just love her and that he wants her to be his in every way, but can he convince her to marry a man who's not of her class? Especially when a rich viscount seems ready to offer for her at any moment?


I really like Simon, though in the beginning it irked me that he used not being a gentleman as a rationalization for taking advantage of her bad situation to make a mistress out of her, but looking down on the aristocrats for doing the same thing. He has been fantasizing about this girl for 2 years and he never thought to offer her marriage? Really? Annabelle wasn't much better in her resistance to Simon. She let her prejudice of the lower classes color her judgment when it came to Simon. If she'd have accepted his offers to dance she might have gotten to know him. I mean, the guy is mega rich, and interested in her. If she'd gotten over herself she could have eventually talked him around to thinking marriage. She never even thought to give it a chance. The whole attitude the guys in this book had with regards to Annabelle's situation was disgusting. They're all like "Why marry the poor girl when I can wait until she's desperate enough to become my whore? " I know, different times and all that, but it's still sick as far as I'm concerned. I really liked the rest of the Wallflowers and am looking forward to their books.

Mr. Cavendish, I Presume

Author: Julia Quinn

Amelia Willoughby is being embarrassed by her fiance and he doesn't even seem to know it. Normally being engaged to someone as lofty as Thomas Cavendish, Duke of Wyndham, would be considered enviable by any young lady and her marriage minded mama, but when you've been engaged to said duke practically from birth and have reached the age of one and twenty without being married people begin to feel sorry for you. Amelia doesn't know much about her fiance, they're practically strangers even after all these years, and has been never bothered by her fiance's lack of attention until she begins receiving pitying glances from the very ladies who should be envying her. She begins to wonder if her fiance even knows she's alive. When he begins acting strangely, not his usually stiff and upright self, and lets his guard down a bit, she begins to realize that she might just like him ... maybe even love him. Just as she's coming to the realization that she might be very happy married to Thomas, things begin to unravel and she finds that marrying the Duke of Wyndham might just mean losing the man she loves.

Thomas Cavendish, Duke of Wyndham, knows he will have to marry his long-time fiance soon, but surely it couldn't hurt anything to put it off just a little longer? When she behaves unexpectedly at a party, he gets a chance to speak with her alone, and finds that she's a bit more interesting than he ever thought possible. If an unknown cousin hadn't shown up all of a sudden to turn his world upside down, things might be going quite well. Finding out that a long dead uncle, older brother to the previous duke, married shortly before he died, leaving behind a pregnant wife who later died giving birth to Jack Audley-Cavendish and that he, not Thomas, might be the real Duke of Wyndham would be enough to send any man in to a tail spin. Thomas has an identity crisis of major proportions. All his life he's been taught and trained to be the Duke of Wyndham and if he isn't that, then who is he? What will his life become? He finds that Amelia is a good companion to him during this turmoil, but what good does falling in love with her do when she's contracted to marry the Duke of Wyndham regardless of what man bears that title?

This book is a sequel to The Lost Duke of Wyndham and, while the book can stand alone, I strongly suggest reading the first book before you read this one. I found it odd to read a sequel that basically relives the events of the first book, only through the eyes of what was originally a secondary couple. It's happened a time or two where I'm reading a book and this secondary pairing catches my attention and I wonder what's going on with them. Usually this happens when the pairing is slated for a book of their own, but I've never seen it done this way. At times I've wondered what was going on in the heads of other characters during a story and this kind of gave me that. In the first book, I though that Thomas was a real uptight tool and in the second you find out that he is, in fact, kind of an uptight tool, but there is more to him than that. I liked him a lot better once I got a look at things from his perspective. I remember that, in the first book, Amelia really annoyed me with how docile she seemed through the whole thing. Here are her father and her fiance telling her she has to marry a total stranger if he does turn out to be the legitimate Duke of Wyndham and she doesn't really say anything about it. She looks like a weak, hand-wringing ninny. You get to see her in a better light here, though I still think she could have spoken up for herself sooner. She picks up a real backbone by the end of it, though and I like that.

The Kept Woman

Author: Susan Donovan

Samantha Monroe is tired of her life. The fiery red-head was once an artist, but she set that all aside to help support her husband and raise their kids. Unfortunately, 10 years down the road, her husband impregnates her, tells her he's discovered that he's gay and wants a divorce, then proceeds to disappear without a trace. She is now the divorced mother of three trying to make it on a hairdresser's salary. She's got two young teens who are always bickering and a precocious toddler who refuses to be potty trained, which causes no end of trouble in the childcare department. If she could just track down her deadbeat ex and collect the over $50,000 he owes her in back child support, things would be looking up, but after three years she's losing hope that she'll ever see a cent. When she muses tipsily to her friends on their monthly night out that being a kept woman might not be such a bad deal, she sparks an idea in Kara DeMarinis, long time client and friend of Samantha's who also happens to be a campaign manager who's congressional candidate, Jack Tolliver, has a serious image issue. Why not pay Samantha to pretend to be his fiance? She'll get to live in his fancy house for the duration, private school and college trust funds for her kids, and enough money to buy a house when the campaign is over. It's sounds insane to Samantha, but can she really afford to pass it up?

Jack Tolliver loves his playboy lifestyle and he's not the least bit ashamed of that. He can't get enough of beautiful women, especially red-heads, and has no intention of settling on just one. Due to an unfortunate moment that was caught on video, however, the whole world knows he's a shameless womanizer. As if that weren't bad enough, Christy Schoen, former lover and anchor for Capitol Update has got it in for him. What they say about a woman scorned definitely applies to Christy. She's made it her mission to expose every one of Jack's indiscretions and destroy his political career. Jack's cavalier attitude towards women does not sit well with female voters and family values groups. When the current senator for his state steps down unexpectedly, Jack realizes that this is likely his last chance to be elected. All he has to do is clean up his image, but when Karen DeMarinis suggests he "rent" a fiance, he's pretty skeptical. When he find out she has kids, he's totally against it, but in the end realizes that he has no choice if he's to have a hope in hell of getting elected. He's pretty sure this will all be a huge disaster, but he might be able to pull it off if he can play the doting family man and keep it in his pants until after the election. Then again, maybe he can talk a certain red-head into making their arrangement a little more ... personal.


The thing that most bugged me out of this whole crazy plot was Samantha's ex. He lives on the run because he doesn't have the money to pay child support. That's totally believable, but what gets me is that in all that time he hasn't tried to keep in any kind of contact with his kids. At first he gives the impression that he never even thinks of them. Then the phone calls, which alerts him that he may have been found, gets him to thinking about them and wanting to see them again. When he's told Sam's engaged, the man starts getting all crazy over the possibility of Jack adopting his kids. Most people don't adopt their step-kids, especially not when they're older, like Sam's were. Seems a bit irrational, but since he seems to be missing his kids and doesn't want them to become some other man's, it makes one think that he's realized that his kids are the most important thing in his life and that he may be sorry for what he's done. Then he turns around and blackmails Sam, takes money that was meant to be fore the kids, and tries to wreck things between Sam and Jack. The man's mind made more swings than a pendulum. The only time he seemed the least bit sympathetic was when he was playing Sam. Hated that character. HATED. The reason for Jack's womanizing was understandable, but really lame.

The Rogue Hunter - Lynsay Sands

I'll state outright that I'm a sucker for anything Sands. I've read all her Argeneau books and I love her historicals. I really enjoy the humor in her books. They never fail to entertain. I know some people get caught up in the fact that she uses some modern language in her historicals, but I get a kick out of it.

The Rogue Hunter is about Garrett Mortimer, an enforcer for the Council. He's the immortal equivalent of a cop. He's been sent up to cottage country searching for a rogue immortal who's been biting people instead of bag lunchin' it like they're supposed to. Samantha Willan is on a much needed vacation with her sisters and ends up in the cabin right next door. She's an overworked lawyer recovering from a recent relationship disaster and definitely not looking for a man. Garrett suspects she might be his life mate and is less than thrilled. He's looking for a knock out with voluptuous curves, think Jessica Rabbit, and Sam is too skinny, flat-chested, narrow hipped and chronically clumsy to fit his bill. Between Garrett's partners, who think he's lucky to have found his life mate and Sam's sisters, who think she needs a vacation fling, Sam and Garrett keep getting thrown together.

This wasn't my favorite Sands book. It might actually be my least favorite. It just wasn't on par with the Argeneau series. The mystery just wasn't that interesting and pretty easy to figure out, which, depending on how good the rest of the story is, might or might not be a deal breaker for me. In this book I found it annoying. I both liked and disliked the main characters. I found Sam more annoying as the book went on. Her personally just seemed to grate on me. Mortimer seemed just a bit too uptight at times and it bugged me that he was so stuck on the superficial things he wasn't happy about in his life mate. It's his life mate for crying out loud! Some vampires never get that, but he's too busy complaining to himself about her looks to be happy about it. GAH! Also, the dialog wasn't as funny as I've come to expect from this author.