The randomly chosen winners of an e-copy of Gambled Away are:
Timitra
and
fsbuchler
Congratulations!
Please send your email address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
Showing posts with label Rose Lerner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rose Lerner. Show all posts
Saturday, June 18, 2016
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Today's Special - - Rose Lerner and Gambled Away
Rose Lerner joins us today. Rose discovered romance novels at age thirteen and wrote her first historical romance a few years later. She's still fascinated with England's Regency and still writing historical romances. Some of them have hit our "best of" lists the past few years. She says that when she's not reading, writing, or researching, she enjoys cooking and binge watching old television shows. Rose's newest published story is part of an anthology titled Gambled Away. More about that at the bottom of this post but first, welcome back, Rose!
Hi! I’m really, really happy to be back at the Dish. Y’all
are the best, which is good because I want to talk about something kind of
weird and personal today.
When I was in high school, I had a best friend.
Let’s call her Beatrice. Beatrice hated to be bossy, but she also really,
really wanted to get her own way. (Looking back, I can sympathize, but at the
time I didn’t really understand what was going on, just that it made me feel
bad.)
Every time we went out to eat (which was often,
because we spent A LOT of time together), the conversation would go like this:
BEATRICE: Where do you want to eat?
ROSE: Let’s get Arby’s.
BEATRICE: I just had Arby’s yesterday.
ROSE: How about that place with the really good
tomato soup?
BEATRICE: I dunno, I’m not really in the mood
for that...
ROSE: Where do you want to eat?
BEATRICE: Oh, no, I want to go somewhere you
want to go!
ROSE: How about pizza?
BEATRICE: Ooh, yes, pizza sounds great!
Essentially, I don’t think she meant to do it,
but she would ask me what I wanted
and then push me into trying to guess what she
wanted. So not only were we not going
where I wanted, but also the decision was my responsibility! And if I chose the
restaurant and she didn’t like her dinner (she often didn’t like her dinner), I
felt awful.
And the thing is, I didn’t mind going where she
wanted! But over time I grew to resent having to play this little game, so I
started saying, “Oh, wherever’s fine.” And I would stick to it, stubbornly
laid-back, refusing with all my heart to have an opinion. It was surrender, but
it was resistance, too.
By some bizarre emotional alchemy, after a year
of saying it...I actually stopped knowing what I wanted to eat. When I was
alone, I had no problem. But put me in a group, and desire deserted me. I would
run through restaurants and favorite dishes in my head and feel nothing about
any of them.
How can you just not know what you want to eat?
Isn’t food the most basic appetite of all? But I wonder how unusual it actually
is. I know my BFF had a similar problem: when we first started hanging out, we
had to make an ironclad rule that we would take turns choosing the restaurant,
and we had to enforce it ruthlessly. No cheating!
It sounds so petty, but it was brutal. Sometimes we would sit in
silence for five minutes while one of us racked her brain for something that
sounded like maybe she might want to eat it. I remember once I came up with
somewhere that had mac-and-cheese I liked, and we went there, and the place was
closed. I sat in the car with her in the dark in an agony of embarrassment and indecision, so hungry and apologizing
over and over for my brain being completely, helplessly, stubbornly blank. I
can still remember the street, and my steering wheel, and trying to laugh.
Obviously, there were other issues in my life,
and in my relationship with Beatrice, than just food. But it still amazes me to
think I went, in one year, from having no problem at all with this particular
task, to this ludicrous gap in my own brain.
When I was writing Simon, the hero of my new
novella “All or Nothing” (who’s still trying to get over his intense college
relationship with a guy who has some things in common with my friend Beatrice),
I thought about that a lot — the ways in which we can lose touch with our own
desires when we don’t feel like we have freedom of choice. The ways we let
ourselves grow into the empty spaces around other people’s questions instead of
asking our own. And most importantly, the ways people in a good relationship
can give each other space to grow in any direction they feel like.
When you don’t trust yourself, following your
heart can feel like the biggest gamble there is.
Are you still friends with your best friend from high school?
What's your favorite restaurant?
What's a bad habit you had to unlearn from an old relationship?
Rose is giving away two e-book copies of Gambled Away.
Rose is giving away two e-book copies of Gambled Away.
Spanning centuries and continents, five brand-new novellas from beloved historical romance authors tell the stories of men and women who find themselves wagered in a game of chance and are forced to play for the highest stakes of all: love.
“Gideon and the Den of Thieves” by Joanna Bourne
London, 1793 – Soldier of fortune Gideon Gage has come home from halfway around the world, fully prepared to face down a ruthless gang to save his sister. But there’s one member of the gang he could never have been prepared for: fascinating Aimée, driven from her own home by the French Revolution and desperately in need of his help.
“Raising The Stakes” by Isabel Cooper
California, 1938 — When the flute she won in last night’s poker game unexpectedly summons an elven warrior bound to her service, two-bit con artist Sam takes quick advantage. With Talathan’s fairy powers at her command, her shakedown of a crooked preacher is a sure thing…but would she rather take a gamble on love?
“All or Nothing” by Rose Lerner
England, 1819 – Architect Simon Radcliffe-Gould needs someone to pose as his mistress so he can actually get some work done at a scandalous house party. Irrepressible gambling den hostess Maggie da Silva would rather be his mistress, but she’ll take what she can get…
“The Liar’s Dice” by Jeannie Lin
Tang Dynasty China, 849 A.D. — Lady Bai’s first taste of freedom brings her face to face with murder. A dangerous and enigmatic stranger becomes her closest ally as she investigates the crime, but can she trust her heart or her instincts when everyone is playing a game of liar’s dice?
“Redeemed” by Molly O’Keefe
Denver, 1868 — After agonizing years in the Civil War’s surgical tents, Union doctor James Madison has nothing left to lose. But when beautiful, tortured Helen Winters is the prize in a high-stakes game of poker, he goes all in to save her—and maybe his own soul.
Monday, January 18, 2016
Rose Lerner Winner
The randomly chosen winner of an e-copy of
Listen to the Moon by Rose Lerner is:
erin
Congratulations, erin!
Please send your email address to:
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Today's Special - - Rose Lerner
Hi everyone! So excited to be back at the Dish.
Today I’m
talking about makeovers!
There’s a scene in my new valet/maid
Regency romance, Listen to the Moon,
where my heroine Sukey decides to splurge on dressing up for the New Year’s servants’ ball in Lively St. Lemeston. She
wants to impress her new husband John:
She’d never much minded wearing her
only gown before. When you dressed for coal-stains and dust every day, it was
exciting enough to be clean and curl your hair and leave off your cap and
neckerchief. She’d always felt pretty. But she hadn’t been married then. She’d had nobody to
impress.
John had laughed up his sleeve at her when she’d bragged of Lively St. Lemeston servants’
balls. God only
knew what the servants he’d been used to living among got up
to at the New
Year. They drank
champagne, most likely. They owned evening gloves and dancing slippers.
She was tired of feeling small and young and country
mouse, and as if John had done her a favor by
condescending to marry her. She wanted him to pay her court, and feel smug about his luck.
She wanted to be better than pretty. She wanted to be beautiful.
There is something about a makeover
scene that is so satisfying! That moment when one protagonist sees the other
dressed up, really dressed up, for
the first time (often at the top or bottom of a staircase), and their jaw drops
to the floor...I love it every time! I love it when:
•
someone says, “You do clean up well”
•
the buddy cops have to dress up for
a case and see each other in a tux/dress/whatever for the first time (in fact,
I love formalwear episodes of every kind)
•
someone takes the shy debutante
under their wing and teaches her to dress to flatter her figure/face
•
someone tugs uncomfortably at their
tie/the neckline of their stunning gown/dress uniform because they are a
rough-and-tumble person, really--but damn they look incredible right now
I COULD GO ON.
So, ten of my favorite fictional
makeover/dressing-to-impress scenes and stories!
1. Iron Man, when Tony sees Pepper in that sea-green dress and for a
second he doesn’t recognize her—and then he does and he’s so, so happy!
Tony already thinks Pepper is the
most perfect, beautiful person in existence, but something about her being at a
party (even if it’s an office party) and wearing a
fancy dress gives him permission to shift things in a romantic direction—and it makes Pepper feel brave enough to think about letting him.
Every line of this scene makes me squee.
2. Any Duchess Will Do by Tessa Dare is one of my favorite Pygmalion
romances. I still think about the dowager duchess’s advice for walking in heels every
single time I wear them, which is not often (imagine there’s a thread attached to your navel pulling you forward).
The scene where Halford sees Pauline
in her “duchess” get-up for the first time during a
fencing lesson and is so distracted he falters and gets cut is amazing, even
though the fencer in me is screaming WHY AREN’T YOU WEARING A DAMN HELMET? WHY
AREN’T THERE BUTTONS ON YOUR FOIL?
3. Laurel Lance dressing up for
Tommy’s fundraiser in Arrow
(episode 1x6). He’s throwing the fundraiser for her
law clinic because he lurrrrves her, so she’s dressing up for the law
clinic...but also to say “thank you” to Tommy. Her willingness to abandon her flats for a night is a
signal to him that she’s willing to give their
relationship a chance.
4. A Bollywood Affair by Sonali Dev. Mili can barely pay rent. Her
wardrobe consists of the same cheap t-shirt in ten colors, so when her friend
Ridhi loans her a sexy churidar suit for her wedding...well, I’ll let Samir tell you:
“It had been hard enough when she wore those
boxlike T-shirts on her unboxlike body...[T]he last thing he needed to see, to
know, was that she blushed with her entire body, that the glistening luminosity
of her skin wasn’t
restricted to her face, to her arms. Shit, he was thinking about the skin on
her arms. And he couldn’t
believe how bloody erotic the thought was.”
Yes, yes, and yes. Of course Mili falls down
the staircase into Samir’s arms
instead of gracefully descending it, but hey, that’s still part of the fantasy,
isn’t it? I’m still my normal dorky self under all this
silk.
5. Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers, when Harriet wears the
wine-colored frock. I love everything about this scene: that Peter told her he
wanted to see her in a wine-colored frock because it would suit her
honey-colored skin; that she ran back to the car to ask him what kind of wine; that he answered with a vintage and year (“Château Margaux 1893”); that she actually bought the dress because she is totally softening towards him; that when
they dance Harriet is totally caught up in the romantic fantasy of the
makeover/party while Peter (either out of gentlemanliness or obsession)
restricts his conversation entirely to the case; that her feelings are hurt (“Wimsey had never danced with her, never held her in his arms
before. It should have been an epoch-making moment for him”); that he SEES that her feelings are hurt and he is SO FLATTERED;
and that, best of all, he lavishes theatrically-overdone-but-entirely-sincere
compliments on her, including:
“I have waited a thousand years to
see you dance in that frock.”
My darlings. MY HEART.
6. 12 Monkeys (the Syfy series), pretty much every time Cole and
Cassie have to go to a fancy party as part of their mission--but especially in
the pilot, where they attend their first gala at an art gallery. The makeover
moment is especially amazing because time-traveler Cole is from a violent,
impoverished dystopian future where having really clean clothes, enough to eat,
or even just five minutes to relax is an idle fantasy. He loves his suit, he
loves her dress, he loves looking at art, he loves dancing, he loves dancing with Cassie, and he’d really like to just take a moment to enjoy the party with her.
Cassie is very goal-oriented and doesn’t let him slack for long, but they
do get a lovely dance in...
7. Crazy Thing Called Love by Molly O’Keefe, in which TV morning show
host Maddie has to give her ex-husband Billy, a fighting hockey superstar, a
makeover on camera. My favorite thing about this was how the new clothes and
look gave Billy a new sense of worth and potential. He’s used to thinking about his body as something that’s just for fighting, that isn’t valuable or worth protecting or
paying attention to, and seeing him put on a nice soft sweater and think that
maybe he’s more than that...I’m kind of tearing up writing this
sentence, actually.
8. Brooklyn Nine-Nine. This show is actually pretty giving when it
comes to both formalwear and dress uniforms (as is Arrow), but I think the time in the season 1 finale when Jake and
Amy had to go undercover as competitive ballroom dancers is particularly worthy
of note. Jake blurts out that Amy’s dress made her look like a
mermaid (it did) and then he teaches her to dance!
9. Rebecca. Okay this is not really the trope but it’s such a beautiful subversion of it that I had to include it. The second Mrs. de Winter is so desperate to impress her husband with how well she hostesses their big masquerade ball, and she sends away to have the outfit in one of the family portraits copied (at the suggestion of evil housekeeper Mrs. Danvers). She descends the stairs, gleefully anticipating Max’s reaction...
only to have him practically throw
up and demand that she change her clothes. Oops! Turns out his dead first wife
Rebecca wore that costume at the last ball! Max also hates it when she orders
new clothes from London. He doesn’t want her to look grown-up and
sophisticated and like a member of his own class; instead, he wants her to stay
a grubby poor child he can control. Because Rebecca
is not a romance! Seriously, I love Gothics so much. The real villain is always
the patriarchy.
10. Jeannie Lin’s My Fair Concubine,
another wonderful Pygmalion story. Like Max de Winter, Fei Long doesn’t like watching Yan Ling’s transformation from tea girl to
noblewoman...but it’s because he misses her bold
outspokenness, now buried under a layer of manners and propriety.
When she and her new maidservant
Dao experiment with makeup, Yan Ling loves how different it makes her feel. She’s crushed when Fei Long reacts with shock and criticism...but he
is only masking how overcome he is by attraction! As she tries to scrub the
makeup off, mortified, he seizes her in his arms and kisses her for the first
time:
“[H]is kiss soothed over lips still
sensitive from the rough scouring she’d given them.”
Mmm. You know how sports fans
watch TV, shouting at the screen? That’s me reading this scene: “MAKE OUT! MAKE OUUUUUUT! Wooooo!”
What’s your favorite makeover moment?
Rose is giving away an e-copy of Listen to the Moon to one person who leaves a comment on today's post.
John Toogood dreamed of being valet to a great man...before he was laid off and blacklisted. Now he's stuck in small-town Lively St. Lemeston until London's Season opens and he can begin his embarrassing job hunt.
His instant attraction to happy-go-lucky maid Sukey Grimes couldn't come at a worse time. Her manners are provincial, her respect for authority nonexistent, and her outdated cleaning methods--well, the less said about them, the better.
Behind John's austere façade, Sukey catches tantalizing glimpses of a lonely man with a gift for laughter. Yet her heart warns her not to fall for a man with one foot out the door, no matter how devastating his kiss.
Then he lands a butler job in town--but there's a catch. His employer, the vicar, insists Toogood be respectably married. Against both their better judgments, he and Sukey come to an arrangement. But the knot is barely tied when Sukey realizes she underestimated just how vexing it can be to be married to the boss...
Warning: Contains a butler with a protective streak a mile wide, and a maid who enjoys messing up the bed a whole lot more than making it.
Rose is giving away an e-copy of Listen to the Moon to one person who leaves a comment on today's post.
His instant attraction to happy-go-lucky maid Sukey Grimes couldn't come at a worse time. Her manners are provincial, her respect for authority nonexistent, and her outdated cleaning methods--well, the less said about them, the better.
Behind John's austere façade, Sukey catches tantalizing glimpses of a lonely man with a gift for laughter. Yet her heart warns her not to fall for a man with one foot out the door, no matter how devastating his kiss.
Then he lands a butler job in town--but there's a catch. His employer, the vicar, insists Toogood be respectably married. Against both their better judgments, he and Sukey come to an arrangement. But the knot is barely tied when Sukey realizes she underestimated just how vexing it can be to be married to the boss...
Warning: Contains a butler with a protective streak a mile wide, and a maid who enjoys messing up the bed a whole lot more than making it.
Wednesday, January 6, 2016
Review - - Listen to the Moon
Listen to the Moon
By Rose Lerner
Publisher: Samhain
Release Date: January 5, 2016
Sukey Grimes (and I feel certain Lerner intended readers to chuckle at that name for a character who cleans haphazardly) and John have little in common. Their attitude toward their work is different, their upbringing was different, their status in servants’ hierarchy is different, and there is an eighteen-year age difference between forty-year-old John and the younger maid. Sukey’s philosophy is that one should do just enough work to get paid. She wants to make enough money to support herself, maintain her independence, and prove wrong her mother’s prediction that Sukey will end up in the workhouse. She is amused by John and just as aware of his attractions as he is of hers. Regardless of the mutual attraction, John fears taking advantage of Sukey, and their early relationship can be described as a flirtatious friendship with an adversarial edge. But circumstances change. When John is offered a job as butler in a vicar’s household contingent upon his being a married man, he asks Sukey to be his wife and part of his staff. Sukey is not in love with John, and she is not interested in marriage to anyone. She has a very negative view of the institution. But when she needs a job, John’s proposition becomes more appealing. Can these two very different people make a success of their new jobs and their new marriage?
Regulars at the Dish know that I’m a
huge Rose Lerner fan and have been since her first book. Each of her books has
given me something new to rave about. I love the way this third book in the
Lively St. Lemeston series takes established romance tropes and gives them not
exactly a twist bur rather applies them in a new situation. The marriage of
convenience is one of the oldest and best loved tropes. I must have read
thousands of romances that use it, but this is the first time the marriage of
convenience has been between a valet turned butler and a maid. I also consider
this a cross-class romance. Lerner makes her readers aware that the servants’
world is no less hierarchically structured than is that of their employers. If
you have read many Regency/ Victorian romances, you have doubtless been told
this. The difference here is that Lerner shows us the differences in a valet, a
butler, and a maid. To cite just one small detail--when John and Sukey first
meet, he gives her his card: “He pulled a card out of his pocket. John Toogood,
it read. Gentleman’s Gentleman. His own card! Upper servants were another
species, right enough.”
Lerner also uses her impressive
research skills and commitment to historical accuracy to give her readers not a
backdrop but a world—a world very different from the usual one of ballrooms,
house parties, curricle races, and gentlemen’s clubs but no less dimensional
and detailed for all its differences.
Finally, I applaud the way Lerner
handles the substantial age difference. It is neither ignored nor exaggerated.
It is handled with a degree of realism that I don’t remember encountering in
another historical. There is
something of the father-daughter dynamic in John and Sukey’s relationship. He
comes across as paternalistic at points, and she behaves like a child at times.
John feels a particular responsibility:
She's been lonely and afraid, young and inexperienced, and he'd used it to talk her into a marriage that she'd turned down when she had a job.
The more he wanted her, the more he needed her, the more he asked her for - the less chance she would have to be the woman she'd wanted to be, who stood on her own two feet, who had nothing between her and the sun. The less chance she'd have to discover what she really wanted. He'd been collecting his burdens for forty years. Even if they'd grown heavy for him, she was too young to be asked to shoulder half.
If you like romances that are unconventional, if you like to see a relationship develop as the H/H change and grow, if you are a Downton Abbey fan, or if you just long to read a story that pulls you into its world, add Listen to the Moon to your TBR immediately. I highly recommend it.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
Rose Lerner "Sneak Peek" Winner
The randomly chosen winner of a Lively St. Lemeston Kindle e-book by Rose Lerner is:
Mary Preston
Congratulations, Mary!
Please send me an email with your choice of either Sweet Disorder or True Pretenses.
theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com
Friday, October 16, 2015
Sneak Peek Cover Reveal and Excerpt - - Listen To The Moon
If you're a regular here you already know that both Janga and I are ardent fans of Rose Lerner's writing, describing her books with phrases such as: "a treasure," "cross class romance," "a portrait of ordinary life," "willingness to write outside the norm," and "refreshingly atypical hero and heroine." Sweet Disorder, the first book in Lerner's Lively St. Lemeston series made Janga's Top 10 Romance Novels of 2014 and the second book in the series, True Pretenses is among my favorites for 2015. I'm delighted today to bring you the exclusive cover reveal and excerpt from the third book in Lerner's Lively St. Lemeston series, Listen to the Moon. I've already pre-ordered my copy and marked my calendar for January 5, 2016!
LISTEN TO THE MOON
By Rose Lerner
Lively St. Lemeston - Book 3
Publisher: Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
Release Date: January 5, 2016
Pre-Order Link
John Toogood dreamed of being valet to a great man…before he was laid off and blacklisted. Now he’s stuck in small-town Lively St. Lemeston until London’s Season opens and he can begin his embarrassing job hunt.
His instant attraction to happy-go-lucky maid Sukey Grimes couldn’t come at a worse time. Her manners are provincial, her respect for authority nonexistent, and her outdated cleaning methods—well, the less said about them, the better.
Behind John’s austere façade, Sukey catches tantalizing glimpses of a lonely man with a gift for laughter. Yet her heart warns her not to fall for a man with one foot out the door, no matter how devastating his kiss.
Then he lands a butler job in town—but there’s a catch. His employer, the vicar, insists Toogood be respectably married. Against both their better judgments, he and Sukey come to an arrangement. But the knot is barely tied when Sukey realizes she underestimated just how vexing it can be to be married to the boss…
EXCERPT
Sukey Grimes, maid-of-all-work, gave the chipped mantel a last pass with her duster. Empty of furniture, the two attic rooms looked nearly a decent size. But on a rainy day likethis, nothing could hide the leak in the roof. The boards in the ceiling swelled and rotted,and water dripped into a cast-iron pot with a constant plip plip plip.
Someone knocked.
“Mrs. Dymond, is that you?” Sukey called. “I’ve been over these rooms, and if your sister happens to be missing a hairpin with a lovely rosette on it, I simply can’t imagine where it could have got to.” She pulled the pin from her hair and held it out as she opened the door.
It wasn’t Phoebe Dymond, former lodger in these rooms, or her new husband Nicholas Dymond either. It was a very tall, very well dressed, very—“handsome” wasn’t in it. Oh, he was handsome; there weren’t any bones to be made about that. But handsome was ten for a penny. This man had character. His jaw might have been hewn from oak, and his nose jutted forward, too large on someone else’s face but perfect on his. His warm, light-brown eyes stared right into her, or would have if he’d seemed the slightest bit interested in her.
He glanced down at the hairpin, lips thinning. His eyebrows drew together, one bumping slightly up at the side. The tiny, disapproving shift brought the deep lines of his face into sharp relief.
Oof. He as good as knocked the breath out of her, didn’t he? “I’m that sorry, sir, I thought you were somebody else.” She tucked the pin back into her hair with relief. Mrs. Dymond’s little sister had made the rosette from a scrap of red ribbon that showed to advantage in Sukey’s brown hair. “Are you here about the rooms for let? They come with a bed,” she said encouragingly, quite as if the mattress had been restuffed in the last half a decade.
The eyebrows went up together this time. “I am Mr. Toogood. Mr. Dymond’s valet.” The calm, quiet growl of his voice knocked the breath out of her too. Deep and powerful, it was made for loudness, even if he kept it leashed. Tamed, he probably thought, but Sukey didn’t think you could tame a voice like that, only starve it into temporary submission.
She wondered what Mr. Toogood would sound like tangled with a woman in that lumpy bed. Were bitten-off growls all he’d allow himself there as well? She’d never find out—she had never tangled herself up with any man yet, and never planned to—but it was nice to think about nevertheless.
Tardily, her brain caught up with her ears. “Not anymore, are you? Or you’d know not to look for him here.” She didn’t expect Mr. Dymond could afford a valet now he’d married beneath him.
Mr. Toogood didn’t flinch. If anything, he looked more calmly superior than before. “No, not anymore, that’s correct. Can you tell me where I might find the Dymonds?” That voice rubbed up and down her spine.
She made a show of considering. “I don’t know as I’d ought to tell you. How am I to be sure you are who you say you are?”
To her surprise, his lips twitched. He pulled a card out of his pocket. John Toogood, it read. Gentleman’s Gentleman. His own card! Upper servants were another species, right enough.
She pocketed the card to show the maid next door. “Oh, that don’t prove a thing. Anybody can have cards printed.”
His lips curved, the lines between his nose and the corners of his mouth deepening in a very pleasant way. “And anybody can sweep a floor thoroughly, but I don’t accuse you of doing it.”
***
Have you read Rose Lerner's books yet?
Do you have a favorite?
Do you enjoy stories about "ordinary" characters?
I'm giving away a Kindle copy of one of the first two Lively St. Lemeston books to a randomly chosen person who leaves a comment on today's post. Winner's choice of Sweet Disorder or True Pretenses.
Do you have a favorite?
Do you enjoy stories about "ordinary" characters?
I'm giving away a Kindle copy of one of the first two Lively St. Lemeston books to a randomly chosen person who leaves a comment on today's post. Winner's choice of Sweet Disorder or True Pretenses.
Monday, June 15, 2015
On Second Thought - - In for a Penny
 |
| Graphics by Sharlene |
We're premiering a new feature at the Romance Dish today. Sometimes we miss a book - or an author - the first time around. There are so many books published each month and, let's face it, there just aren't enough hours - or dollars - to read them all so some never make it onto our reader radar. Occasionally, a company will reissue a previously published book. Also, with the growing popularity of e-books, many authors have regained the rights to their traditionally published books and are giving them a second chance on the digital platform. All of this gives readers a second chance to discover a wonderful story they may have missed. On the 15th of each month, Janga will be bringing us a review of one of those reissued books and, hopefully, giving you the opportunity to discover a wonderful new book that you may have missed when it was first released or remind you of the reasons you enjoyed reading it the first time around. We hope you'll join us the 15th of each month for On Second Thought!
In for a Penny
By Rose Lerner
Publisher: Samhain
Release Date: June 2, 2015
Nathaniel Ambrey, Viscount Nevinstoke, is an amiable young
man who enjoys his life of merrymaking with his friends and his beautiful
mistress. He lives strictly for the moment with no thought of tomorrow beyond
what amusement the day may bring. That changes when his father is killed in a
foolish duel and Nev is forced to deal with the results of a lifetime of excess
and thoughtlessness. Nev becomes the
Earl of Bedlow with an estate that has been neglected and exploited and a
burden of debt so heavy that even selling his town house, his mother’s jewels,
and everything else that is unentailed hardly makes a dent in what he owes.
When his sister, Louisa, offers to marry a wealthy merchant, Nev assures her
that such a sacrifice is unnecessary, but Louisa’s suggestion reminds him that
he met and liked the daughter of a wealthy brewer. She just might be the
solution to his problem.
Penelope Brown has no interest in a titled husband. Her
memories of the slights and mockery she endured at the hands of her
aristocratic schoolmates are still fresh, and she has no illusions about how
she and her mother are regarded when they attend social events hosted by the
few former schoolmates who remember Penny. When she thinks of marriage, it is
an ambitious young man of her own class whom she sees as her husband. Thus,
Penny surprises even herself when she accepts Nev’s proposal, even though he makes
no secret of the fact that his offer is prompted solely by his desperate need
for her dowry.
Neither Nev nor Penny is prepared for all the problems that
await them at Loweston, his country seat. The estate and its tenants are even
more impoverished that Nev expected, and he has no idea how to deal with the
poverty or the simmering resentment. With much of Penny’s money tied up for
their children, the funds they have are insufficient for all that needs to be
done. An incompetent steward and a vicar who is the very worst sort of pompous,
self-righteous fool with no understanding of Christian charity further
complicate matters, as does a neighbor who
is willing to go to extremes to control the workers who he is convinced are
poised for revolution.
On the personal front, things are not much better. Nev and
Penny, despite their differences, genuinely like one another, and that liking
develops into warmer feelings. But they are very young (Penny is nineteen; Nev
is twenty-three), and they are plagued with insecurities. Penny cannot forget
that she is not a true lady, the kind of wife Nev should have, and just in case
she should forget for a moment, his mother is there to bemoan the unsuitability
and low origins of Nev’s wife. Convinced that the only thing she has to
contribute is her money and the knowledge of bookkeeping she has learned from
her father’s business, Penny is unwilling to be open about her feelings.
Nev is just as reticent. He feels that he is a failure who
has to depend on his wife’s money and cleverness to accomplish anything. He
believes Penny deserves a better husband. They are each too determined to
protect their vulnerabilities to build on the things they do have in common
such as a sense of humor and a love of music or to comprehend that Penny’s
understanding of economic principles and Nev’s people skills are actually
complementary. Their marriage and their
very lives will be endangered before they share their feelings and claim the
happiness they deserve.
Penny and Nev are both wonderful, richly developed characters
who struggle and grow during the course of the story. From the beginning, they
are individuals who act against type. Romance fiction is filled with
aristocrats who court the daughters of wealthy cits or who, at least initially,
resent the merchant class heiresses they are forced to marry, often while
imagining themselves in love with some more suitable beauty. But Nev never
pretends to be anything other than what he is, an inept lord who seeks to marry
wealth in order to save his estate and his family. He is grateful to Penny and
protective of her dignity, and he quickly comes to appreciate her intelligence,
kindness, and strength. He never makes false promises, telling her only that he
expects they “could rub along tolerably well together.”
Although Penny admittedly enjoys Nev’s kisses from the first
one they share, she never sees him as a romanticized, impossibly handsome
figure whom she loved at first sight. She views him as “a perfectly
ordinary-looking young man” of “middling height” with hair that is “merely
brown” and eyes that are “an ordinary blue, of an ordinary shape and size.”
There is something distinctly Austenesque in her response to Nev’s proposal: “
I see no reason why two people of good sense and amiable dispositions should
not find a tolerable measure of conjugal felicity, even if they are not,
perhaps, united by those bonds of affection and familiarity which one might
wish.” Even their lack of communication, which might be irritating in more
conventional characters, is believable and forgivable in light of their youth
and their particular situation.
The secondary characters are also well developed, and each
serves a purpose. I especially liked Penny’s parents, who, far from plotting to
see their daughter marry a title, express concern when she accepts Nev. They
love their daughter, and their primary concern is her happiness. Her father
goes so far as to assure her at the wedding that if Nev makes her unhappy,
divorce is an option, regardless of the scandal and expense. Nev’s initial
meeting with the Browns is one of the most delightful scenes in the novel, and
it is fitting that mutual affection develops between Nev and his in-laws.
When I first read In for a Penny five years ago, I knew it
was an extraordinary debut book in its depth of characterization, its attention
to historical detail, and its engaging story. Penny and Nev were characters I
knew I would revisit, and Rose Lerner was an author I knew I would recommend to
friends. Each rereading has strengthened that opinion and my appreciation for
this gem of a book. I give it my highest recommendation. And if, after you have
read it, you need an audience for your raves, I’m available. I always enjoy
having my status as a discerning reader affirmed.
~Janga
Have you read In for a Penny or any of Rose Lerner's other books?
What books or authors have you discovered through a reissue?
What books do you enjoy revisiting?
One person who leaves a comment on today's post will receive a Nook or Kindle (winner's choice) copy of In for a Penny.
Have you read In for a Penny or any of Rose Lerner's other books?
What books or authors have you discovered through a reissue?
What books do you enjoy revisiting?
One person who leaves a comment on today's post will receive a Nook or Kindle (winner's choice) copy of In for a Penny.
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