Bookish Thoughts

I've been waiting to get to Georgiana's book for so long. I loved her cameos back in MacLean's Love by Numbers  books, and seeing her happily married in a later book had me itching to read her story. But of course I had to read the rest of the series first for the proper setup. And knowing what was coming made it that much more fun to watch a disguised Georgiana flirt with an oblivious Duncan. The attraction between these two is there from the very first pages, which I appreciate. Slow burns have nice payoffs, but it's also a lot of fun when the two people are attracted to each other from the get go and all their obstacles are external. And boy are there some obstacles in this one. Though it basically boils down to the fact that both of them have built their empires on secrets and manipulation. They've been lying to each other and about themselves for so long that they barely know how to tell the truth anymore. Especially about the important things. But that jus...

I was hesitant heading into this book. A lot of romance is somewhat contrived, but this premise seemed a bit much. Twelve years previously the heroine faked her own death and the hero was blamed for it. She disappeared and he had to live with a reputation as the "Killer Duke", which pushed him underground. And somehow the two of them are going to overcome this disastrous first meeting to find true love. It was a tall order. But I should know by now to trust MacLean. Halfway through the book she had completely won me over. It helped that the sex scenes were some of the hottest MacLean has ever written. But she's also just really good at finding the humanity in these absurd situations. She's also good at finding reasonable justifications for seemingly monstrous actions (I'm really excited for the last book in her Bare Knuckle Bastards series for this very reason). So ultimately I enjoyed this book. It wasn't my favorite MacLean, but it wasn't my least fa...

It's such a treat to be this close to reading all of an author's work and still be finding new favorites. One Good Earl Deserves a Lover  is definitely my favorite of MacLean's work. It has the adorably geeky and naive Phillipa, who is sure that she can conquer all her fears with knowledge. It has the incredibly repressed Cross who's so haunted by his past that he's denying himself every possible bit of pleasure. It has fun side plots and a wealth of interesting secondary characters. All that and a heist to boot. It's almost like this book was written just for me. Actually, this book put me in mind of a historical version of The Kiss Quotient . It's never stated or even hinted that Pippa might be on the spectrum, but that also was really a concept in the 1800s. She is described as strange. She hopes for nothing more than a kind husband who will let her go her own way. She's hungry for knowledge and follows her own pursuits without ever really caring ho...

I'm starting the last of Sarah MacLean's finished series, which is really impressive considering I only started reading her books a year or so ago. I can't remember the last time I tore through an author's entire backlog so quickly. But I'm getting ahead of myself - there are still a few of her books left that I haven't read. I don't expect that to be the case for long, though. This series focuses on the four co-owners of a gaming hell. Each has fled society for a different reason, each believes he is beyond redemption. Each will fall in love and be proven wrong. First up is Bourne, who lost his entire estate in a card game ten years prior. Since then he's focused only on regaining his land and getting revenge against the man who took it from him. When the land is attached to the dowry of his childhood friend, he coerces her into marriage. But he gets a lot more than he bargained for. Penelope has been out in society for nearly a decade by the time s...