Review - - How to Romance a Rake

How to Romance a Rake
The Ugly Ducklings - Book 2
By Manda Collins
Publisher:  St. Martin's Press
Release Date:  July 31, 2012

When I finished reading Manda Collins' debut novel, How To Dance With a Duke, I was left with the same feeling I experienced upon reading The Duke and I by Julia Quinn and Tessa Dare's debut, The Goddess of the Hunt:  This is an author for whom great things await.  Reading Collins' second book, How to Romance a Rake has cemented that opinion.  It can only be a matter of time before the awards and accolades begin rolling in.

Miss Juliet Shelby lives on the fringes of the ton, a wallflower who does her best to go unnoticed.  She wasn't always that way.  As a young girl, she was the most animated of the three cousins who have been dubbed the Ugly Ducklings by a spiteful young woman of the ton.  But, as a young teen, while living in Vienna with her parents, Juliet was critically injured in an accident, resulting in amputation of her left foot - an injury that left her self-absorbed mother horrified and embarrassed by her now "crippled" daughter.  Juliet returned to London two years later a changed person; quieter, more subdued, telling no one of the severity of her injury,  not even Maddie and Cecily, her cousins and two best friends.

Juliet isn't the only one who has grown up with a less than perfect parent.  Lord Alec Deveril has spent the past several years trying to undo the damage done to his family name by his reprobate of a father in order to insure a good future for his younger sisters.  A gorgeous man, he is a leader of the ton's young fashionable set but, as of late, as grown weary of it and knows it's time to find a wife and settle down.  His criteria is simple: find someone likable but for whom he feels not one iota of passion.  His late parents offered him a front row seat to the devastating consequences of a passion filled marriage.  He briefly considers Maddie as a potential candidate but it's the quiet, self-possessed Juliet who continues to draw his eye.

When Mrs. Turner,  Juliet's beloved music teacher, a woman who, over the years, has been more a mother to her than her own mother goes missing, it's Alec who offers his help in the search.  As Juliet and Alec spend more time together, they forge a friendship and gradually a fondness for one another that then blooms into desire and, finally, love.  But there are many obstacles to a happy ending for these two.  Juliet's mother is determined to marry her off to a slimy older man Juliet has good reason to fear,  her mother has done her best to convince Juliet that no man will ever find her desirable once he knows of her amputation and Alec fears the reprehensible actions of both his father and his uncle will make it impossible for him to love a woman passionately and bring her happiness.  Then there's the mystery of Mrs. Turner's disappearance with twists and turns aplenty and a lurking danger that could put both Juliet and Alec in harm's way.

I loved this story so much.  I've read it three times and have no doubt I will read it many more times in the future.  I applaud Manda Collins for creating Juliet, a physically imperfect heroine who is absolutely perfect for her hero.  Collins knows the subject well and brings to her character the realistic physical and emotional challenges as well as the quiet strength and determination that make Juliet one of my favorite heroines ever.  Watching her grow throughout her journey and finally come into her own was wonderful.  I cheered for her, hurt for her, feared for her and wanted to do unspeakable things to her witch of a mother for her but not once did I ever pity her.

I usually prefer my heroes dark but Alec just may have won me over to the blond side.  He's a wonderful man with a kind heart who champions Juliet, protects her, desires her and, ultimately, loves her with every breath of his being.  The scene when they first make love is so exquisitely beautiful it brought tears to my eyes and the declaration he makes about Juliet after the villain is vanquished shows how much he respects and understands her and made me want to stand and cheer.

The passion sizzles in this book and while Collins delves into deeply emotional issues she also infuses her stories with plenty of humor along with a terrific secondary cast.  One of my favorite scenes is between Alec and Maddie while they wait for Juliet to be fitted for new gowns at the dressmaker's.  I won't give away any spoilers other than to say it gives the reader a peek into the inner workings of Maddie's mind, something that has Alec pondering how useful she would have been to Wellington during the war, and has me anticipating her book even more.  I have the feeling she's going to lead Monteith a very merry chase!

If you haven't read Manda Collins yet, now's the perfect time to start.  How to Romance a Rake is going straight to my keeper shelf.  I highly recommend it!

~PJ

Today's Special - - Manda Collins

I'm so pleased to host Manda Collins today, on the release day of her newest book, How to Romance a Rake - second in her Ugly Ducklings series.  I've had the pleasure of following Miranda's progression from drabbles on the Eloisa James bulletin board to manuscript writer to published author and it's such a thrill to know that the readers of the world (including me!) now have the opportunity to read this talented author's work. 

When Manda isn't busy writing richly emotional romances with an intriguing touch of mystery she's busy guiding students in her role as academic librarian at a small liberal arts college or gracefully navigating the cyber waters of social media.  I'm sure that somewhere in there she finds time to sleep.  I'm just not sure where. :)  You can find more information about Manda and her books at her website.  You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter and Goodreads. 

Please join me in giving Manda a warm Romance Dish welcome!

A Heroine Like Me

by Manda Collins

First of all, thank you to the wonderful ladies of The Romance Dish for having me back for the release of my second book in the Ugly Ducklings series. This book release thing never gets old! And this book in particular holds a special place in my heart, because it features, for better or for worse, a heroine who is disabled like me.

Let me say up front that Juliet is not me, or a rough facsimile thereof. One of the fun, fabulous things about writing is that you can create characters who have a bit of you in them, but who aren't you at all. Such is it with Juliet. For one thing, I was not saddled with the kind of mother who makes Mommie Dearest look like Mother of the Year!

First, a little background. Juliet's mother was one of a trio of sisters—the Featherstones—who came to London in their late teens from no one knows where, and took society by storm on the strength of their beauty and charisma alone. Rose Featherstone, now Lady Shelby, has worked hard to earn her position in society as a great beauty and when her only daughter suffers an incurable injury to her lower leg while the family is in Vienna for her husband's diplomatic work, Rose is determined not to let her daughter's lameness overshadow her own social position.

For Juliet, this means that she must do whatever it takes to blend into the background. Though she is a gifted pianist, her mother prefers that she not play in public—though she sometimes does—because that would draw attention to Juliet and her injury. Though she is quite pretty in her own right, her mother's wishes mean that she must downplay her looks, and do whatever she must to keep to the fringes of society. And, most significantly, Juliet must never, never call attention to her injury. Because, as crazy as it might sound to us, Lady Shelby fears that her daughter's bum leg will detract from her own beauty.

But it is only in Juliet's third season that Lady Shelby hatches a plan to remove her daughter from her sight all together. She'll marry her off to middle-aged painter, Lord Turlington. When Juliet protests, of course Lady Shelby is ready with a put down to keep her daughter in line, playing to her deepest fears:

     "I do not mean to be unkind, my dear, truly I don't. But husbands require certain…duties of their wives. Duties that require a certain degree of…physicality. I simply do not believe your injury would allow you to participate in such activities. At least not with the regularity that a young man might require….An older husband…would be much more willing to overlook your frailty.  Indeed, I believe he might even be willing to let you continue with your study of the pianoforte.  After all you will need some way to occupy your time."

Fortunately for Juliet, she has learned that Lady Shelby is not someone she can trust, and Alec Devenish, Lord Deveril, is more than happy to put this fiction Juliet's mother has crafted to rest.

Though Lady Shelby is not the villain of How to Romance a Rake, a great deal of the novel is spent, I think, proving all of her assertions about Juliet's place in society, and her place in the world, wrong.

Obviously I live in an era that is much more tolerant of people with all sorts of disabilities than does Juliet. (This week, a double amputee from South Africa will be the first ever to compete on the track as a runner at the Olympics.) But even so, I felt some trepidation about writing this story. I'm not saying all readers are like this, but I've read threads on romance bulletin boards before where readers proclaimed themselves to be totally squicked out by heroes and heroines with missing limbs. There is still, for better or worse, a tendency on our parts to place anyone who isn't like us into the "other" category. We might not be as overt about it as Lady Shelby, but we are all—even me—guilty of it.

I worry that some readers might see How to Romance a Rake as a step backward for the disabled because I focus on the way that Juliet overcomes the stigma surrounding her disability. The goal, of course, is a world where there are disabled characters in novels who are totally unremarkable and who are accepted for who and what they are. But that hasn't been my own experience of the disabled life. And though Juliet is not me, at least at this point in my writing life, I needed to explore the fears and shames and societal pressures of being a disabled woman. And I'm okay with that.

So, gentle readers, are there certain books that have resonated with you because you saw yourself in them? For me, one book that stands out is Edith Layton's To Wed a Stranger, which captured perfectly what it is to be a woman with a serious illness. What's yours? I'll give away a copy of How to Romance a Rake to one commenter.