Recent Favorites: Stacy Reid’s A Matter of Temptation and Emily Rath’s His Grace, the Duke

Stacy Reid’s A Matter of Temptation

This book was my first Stacy Reid and it was an experience! I really appreciated the dynamic between Mina and Simon and certain aspects felt very fresh to me. I loved, for instance, that Mina is the initiator in their relationship early on, especially for the physical side of things, and I really liked that they felt evenly matched in terms of their experience in prior relationships. She was a virgin heroine, but he had only had a handful of sexual partners himself. Furthermore, Mina had a failed elopement as a teen, so she was more schooled in matters of the heart than Simon and had more experience following her passions. Simon had some experience in the bedroom, but it is very clear that he was not an expert—at one point he reads a few books to brush up on sex tips!—and he really wasn’t someone who felt passionately about sex before meeting Mina. That was a really interesting element to me because I haven’t seen that very often in heroes. The typical aristocrat hero is A) a rake, B) stuffy and repressed, or C) a more “normal” guy (i.e. he has enjoyed prior relationships, some of them casual, but he is more well-adjusted about it--I feel like a lot of Tessa Dare heroes are like this). The rake hero might be emotionally cold or stunted, but he tends to at least enjoy his fleeting encounters in the bedroom (even if recently casual relationships have lost a bit of their luster to him). Simon was none of these archetypes, however; he wasn’t a rake, because he didn’t prioritize sexual encounters, and he is not repressed, because he doesn’t really desire them. And he certainly isn’t your normal/well-adjusted type, because he is a hyper-logical, genius, child-prodigy, earl-politician. In short, I really liked how unique Simon’s character was! If you like the idea of a nerdy hero in a historical, I feel like Simon is as close as you are going to get to that contemporary archetype on the page.

I also really enjoyed the set-up of this story. Mina’s brother challenges Simon to a duel, but Mina is the better fencer, so she goes in his stead. Simon has only ever intended to teach the foolish young lord a lesson, but he is surprised to find himself bested in their duel. However, when his young challenger turns away after victory, he realizes that he has not been beaten by a man, but a woman. He asks her to be his secretary and, after some wrangling, she accepts. Their employee-employer dynamic was quite adorable, especially since, in the Victorian period, this arrangement would have been quite unconventional and it is clear from their first encounter that Simon and Mina aren’t just going to keep it professional. It felt like the workplace set-up was really just their way of getting to know each other on terms that felt safe and they have a real courtship due to all the time that they spend together. It was also very refreshing how open they were with each other about their feelings; they didn’t do a lot of repressive grappling over how they felt. Simon, in particular, makes it clear that he doesn’t want to ever give Mina up. The push and pull of their relationship felt like a real couple trying to figure it out and make it work.

Overall, I really recommend A Matter of Temptation to historical readers, particularly those craving a “nerdy” hero and a couple who have a steamy connection but also an intellectual one!

Emily Rath’s His Grace, the Duke

OMG, this series. His Grace, the Duke is the final book in the Second Sons duology and it finishes the story that Beautiful Things started in the perfect way. The development between all of the characters and their relationships, how they become a thriving quartet, is just gorgeous to witness. (And honestly very impressive from a writing perspective? Managing all of those relationships must be very challenging?) The reverse harem set-up is SO satisfying as a Regency reader, because, at this point, I am so familiar with all of the types of heroes out there and so it is very compelling to have them all in one book. You have aristocratic James, who is the repressive, duty-bound hero, who wants to let the heroine and the other heroes into his bedroom and heart, but who struggles to do so. You have Renley, the ship captain adventurer, your Captain Wentworth, and who I would argue is your well-adjusted, charming Tessa Dare-esque hero—Rosalie calls him her refuge and you understand why. And then you have Burke, who is the renegade, iconoclast hero; he is neither an accomplished professional nor the aristocrat. He is the man who plays by his own rules, pursues his desires, and who everyone loves for it. I know all of these hero archetypes from reading historicals (and Jane Austen!) but having them all together on page, all in love with the heroine and each other? UM ITS DELECTABLE, folks.

In His Grace, the Duke, a lot happens to secure the happy ending for our central quartet—both external and emotional. Yes, Rosalie ends up a duchess, but I won’t tell you how! Additionally, the two epilogues that Rath provides are both so good and live rent free in my mind. The first epilogue provides a bit more relationship development between the three men in this ménage and IT IS GOOD TO SEE. The second epilogue shows the quartet’s future and it is SO SWEET. I loved every second.

The last thing I’ll say by way of recommendation is that this series is really an epic. Rath really builds a world around these characters. If you enjoy just falling into a book and floating in it, getting to revel in its richness and buoyancy, this one is for you! If you love historicals, I can guarantee that you won’t regret reading.

Recent Favorites

Renee Ann Miller’s Never Marry a Scandalous Duke

I very much enjoyed this marriage-of-convenience historical! Lady Sara Elsmere is an entomologist who just wants to be left alone to study her butterflies, especially after she fails as a debutante on the marriage market by laughing hysterically when any gentleman asks her to dance. Her brother and sister treat her very poorly and see her as odd, unfashionable, and graceless. Enter Ian McAllister, the Duke of Dorchester, who has no interest in a wallflower like her…until he mistakes her for his mistress and drags her into a closet to kiss her. After they are caught in this lip lock, the Duke realizes that he and Lady Sara can help each other. He can give her control over her inheritance so that she can pursue her studies (and free herself from her unfeeling siblings); she can make him seem respectable to his business associates and, most of all, tame his two young, mischievous wards.

Like many historical readers, I love a marriage of convenience and Never Marry a Scandalous Duke really hits the spot on this score. If you are writing a marriage of convenience, you really have to invest in the 19th century world that would make such an alliance appealing and Miller delivers here. You feel that Lady Sara and her Duke are truly nineteenth-century aristocrats who must abide by the strictures of this world…which makes their falling for each other within the starchy confines of their arrangement all the more delicious. I also really liked how Lady Sara and the Duke light it up in the bedroom from the beginning whereas the other parts of their connection take more time to develop. Miller sets up their agreement so that it is, from the beginning, a real marriage; this book is not a marriage of convenience book where they are planning to call it off or annul it or separate permanently after a year. They very much understand that they are stuck with one another and the Duke even promises her at the outset that he will be faithful as long as she agrees to share his bed. Their connection in the bedroom surprises them both and they end up having to work from there to build a real marriage. I found this handling of the marriage of convenience really refreshing.

I recommend Never Marry a Scandalous Duke to readers who love a marriage of convenience with an authentic nineteenth-century feel, STEM heroines, and stuffy dukes who need to learn how to have emotions.

J.J. McAvoy’s Aphrodite and the Duke

Okay, so a lot of publishers compare their historicals to Bridgerton given the success of the show and, as we all know, a lot of these books aren’t really that much like Bridgerton. But Aphrodite and the Duke really is comparable to Bridgerton—it is truly the perfect read for those who enjoy the dynamics of the Netflix rendering of the book series. If you enjoy the parts of Bridgerton that center on the Queen, the different debutantes jostling to claim the “diamond of the season” title, a big, close family, and a racially diverse high-society world, then you’ll find a lot to love in Aphrodite and the Duke. In its approach to race, the book very much works in the vein that Bridgerton opened. Aphrodite’s family is multiracial (her father is white and her society-leading mother is Black) and, much like in Bridgerton (particularly Season 2), this version of Regency London is one in which racism is not a force at play. Aphrodite is a Daphne Bridgerton-esque diamond of the season and, as her name suggests, she is regarded in the ton as the beauty not just of that year, but of her generation. I found this really satisfying because, in Bridgerton and other historical romances, we haven't yet gotten to see a character like Aphrodite—even though Edwina in Season 2 of Bridgerton is the diamond, she isn’t the heroine, so we don’t really get to see a woman of color represented as both the pinnacle of ton feminine ideals and the hero’s desires in the way that we do for Daphne in Season 1. If you are a reader hungry for this type of representation, I would definitely suggest reading Aphrodite and the Duke—I really enjoyed this aspect of the book myself.

Whereas its approach to historical romance and the depiction of Regency London is familiar due to Bridgerton, this book is unusual in aspects of its storytelling. McAvoy gives us POV sections from characters who are not just Aphrodite and Evander and we don’t get a POV section from Evander until almost halfway through the book. I rolled with this difference, but it seems distinctive enough to be worth noting and I wondered if McAvoy made this choice to set a particularly intimate tone for this series and its ensemble cast going forward. Additionally, whereas its similarities to Bridgerton might strike a reader as being more in line with a newer, modern brand of historical romance, the writing and the sensibilities its characters express in regard to gender were a little reminiscent of old school historicals, in my opinion. Aphrodite’s father and brother and the hero, Evander, were more traditional in terms of their views on gender—Aphrodite has to push all of these characters to allow her more self-determination, and that element of the book definitely ran counter to the already feminist heroes/male characters (with the exception of villains) that have become increasingly popular in the historicals of the past ten or fifteen years. If you are a reader who enjoys seeing a heroine having to reckon with typically 19th century views from her family members (and from loving family members, not just those who are clearly meant to be harmful), then you will appreciate this strand of the book. Overall, this stylistic blend makes Aphrodite and the Duke unique and totally delightful.

I recommend Aphrodite and the Duke to readers who want more of that Bridgerton feeling and, also, to those who enjoy the second chance romance and childhood-friends-to-lovers tropes!

Amanda Quick’s Ravished: The One with Fossils and Cave Sex

[CW: discussion of gender essentialist language]

I first heard of Amanda Quick’s Ravished on the Fated Mates podcast. Sarah and Jen did a deep dive on this book and so I knew it had very beach-y themes AND a sex scene in a cliffside cave. So, for my seaside locale week, I decided to read this romance for my #historicalhistorical series. (For anyone who hasn’t read any of these posts before, I read and analyze historical romances published before 2000 in this series. Ravished was published in 1992). I have read one Amanda Quick before—With This Ring, published in 1998—and I really enjoyed it, so I was excited to read this one, especially since I’d heard so many good things.

As anyone who follows this series knows, when I read pre-2000 historical romances, I often find aspects that make me uncomfortable or seem really dated, but that was largely not the case here. The one big caveat to that, though, would be the rampant gender essentialist language. For instance, when the hero and heroine are having sex, Quick describes them as “bound together in the way only a man and woman could be.” Yikes! I did not enjoy this aspect of the book and this particularly heterosexist and trans-exclusionary example detracted from an otherwise lovely sex scene. The intensive use of “feminine” and “masculine” throughout was also an issue—while I’m generally fine with authors using “feminine” and “masculine” here and there, I like it less the more it gets used. When used too frequently, especially in the context of sex scenes, it is not only exclusionary and invests in stereotypical ideas of gender, but I also feel like it waters down the strength and specificity of the characters' romance (and don’t even get me started on “manhood” as a synonym—if I never saw it again, it would be too soon). In Ravished, Gideon perceives Harriet as “feminine” a lot. Their romance was so strong that it didn’t ruin their chemistry, but even with Gideon, at times, it did start to feel a bit flimsy, as if Harriet’s stereotypically feminine traits (which are never specifically detailed) draw him in as much as her other far more distinctive qualities. All of that said, I can’t attribute the gender essentialist language in this book to its publication date—unfortunately, a lot of contemporary HR has similar language, although probably not to the extent of the egregious example above. In short, it sucks that Ravished uses so much of this language, but I can’t pick on it specifically—it is a problem in the genre, past and present.

With this one caveat, I would recommend Ravished to readers who are interested in pre-2000 historicals that still feel fresh, are low-angst, and have a super enjoyable romance at their core. I found Harriet very charming—she had a delightful matter-of-fact attitude and was so forthright with Gideon. Main characters keeping information from each other is going to naturally be a part of a lot of romances, but I loved how Harriet never does that and, in turn, insists that Gideon be more open with her. Even though Gideon was the more shut down/secretive one of the pair, it didn’t feel destructive or contrived on his end either because he was so devoted to her from the beginning. Harriet’s irrepressible interest in fossils also worked really well—I could see how, in certain books, it might be grating to have a main character so obsessed with a given interest, particularly if that character is a heroine and the narration elevates her to "not like other girls" status due to it. What I loved here, though, was that Quick shows how Harriet is kind of annoying about the fossils, but it ends up feeling like a funny and charming trait (but it is only funny and charming because it is presented as an obsession and not a way in which she differs from other ton women who only care about needlepoint, dresses, etc. It helps that there is at least one other woman character interested in fossils). Harriet is the perfect match for Gideon, who with his tarnished reputation and face scarred from a rapier duel, needs someone who will bring light and understanding into his world (you could even say he needs to be excavated!!). From the beginning, Harriet doesn’t believe the rumors about him and they have a really endearing dynamic around the issue of his past.

One of the other things that I really enjoyed about this book was the different rhythm of the sex scenes. While I love the usual patterns of the contemporary historical romance, it does get a little repetitive when the same general series of erotic acts is repeated in a very similar sequence in most books; main characters tend to start off with kissing and then progress to some kind of semi-clothed hand/mouth play (and an orgasm for just one character—usually in a M/F romance, that one character is the heroine) before having a scene with full nudity and orgasms for everyone. It is not that Ravished didn’t have aspects of this usual sequence (they have their first kiss early in the book, for instance), but I weirdly liked that their first sex scene in the cave (also pretty early in the book) was a bit different. In short, they have sex (her first time) and she doesn't even has an orgasm! It is also very short---he penetrates her for about a minute before he comes. In their later scenes, of course, she does have orgasms, etc., but I liked that Quick switched it up here (or maybe back then it wasn't a switch up?? either way, it was a switch up for me) and I thought that this sex scene focused on Gideon’s pleasure contributed to the freewheeling, explorative nature of their dynamic. It also made sense in the broader context of the book since he is the one who has been isolated/alone and is really in need of healing.

If you are looking for a pre-2000 historical that is fun, different, and influential (you can feel how much Amanda Quick influenced writers like Tessa Dare or Eloisa James, for instance), I definitely recommend Ravished (with the caveat above!).