THE COPELAND BRIDE by Justine Cole (Susan Elizabeth Phillips and Claire Kiehl)

PUBLISHER: Dell, 1983
REISSUED: Dell, 1989
GENRE: Historical Romance

SETTING: England & America, 1835

BODICE RIPPER? Yes
RAPE? Twice
MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: All London knew her as "Her Highness,” the fiery temptress who robbed men of their gold.

But it was proud, untouched Noelle Dorian who was cruelly abducted by Quinn Copeland, the rugged American shipping heir, and, in one brutal act of passion, forced to take his family name.

Transformed by Copeland wealth, abandoned by Quinn, Noelle's rare beauty blossomed in London society. But beneath her soft grace burned a vow of vengeance and a passion for the man whose jet-black eyes and powerful touch she would never forget... 

For Quinn would return-to carry her off to the bold shores of the New World. Together they were destined to carve a new life in the harsh wilderness, bound by a love as glorious, as savage, as their pride. From Soho pickpocket to society belle, from London to the shores of the New World, hers was a game of passion and chance.

MY THOUGHTS: This wasn't good at all. It took me a long 8 days to finish it. It's expensive and hard to find but wasn't worth saving it to read for over two years. Timespan is over three years. Noelle is almost eighteen when it starts and Quinn is almost twenty-eight. All but the last 85 pages take place in England. Noelle is English and Quinn is American. 

Noelle is incredibly strong and way too feisty. She's tall, golden-haired and topaz-eyed. She's immature in some ways and very defiant, and violent. She punched Quinn twice in different instances. She's very hateful toward Quinn but with good reason. Her mother Daisy was a prostitute and Noelle's been on her own since she was ten years old, after Daisy died. She's earned a reputation as the best pickpocket in town (she pretends to be a prostitute then robs men blind without them knowing) but had to abandon that life after meeting Quinn, though she secretly helps out he poor kids sometimes, until she's found out.

Quinn's an angry and sometimes violent man. He once turned her over across his knees and spanked her hard because she threw two fishes at him. Another time he hit her with a whip and it ripped open the side of her dress. She took the same whip and hit him in the face with it. A time or two he grabbed her roughly. He's in the ship building business. He's got black hair, brown eyes and is half or part American Indian. He mistakes Noelle for a prostitute and rapes her ("It's not my habit to rape virgins"), then forces her to marry him to get back at his father, Simon, whom he doesn't get along with. He abandons her to his father and father's business partner, Constance. She and Quinn live separate lives for two years, until Quinn shows back up in England. During that entire time Constance educates her and teaches her to be a lady. Noelle looks much different now because she was in disguise back when they first met ( her speech was horrible naturally and her hair was very short and dyed bright orange) and Quinn doesn't even recognize her though he's staring her in the face. He's very angry at her and his father for keeping her identity secret from him and was passing her off as his cousin named Dorian Pope. Now that he likes what he sees, he wants to stay married to her but she wants a divorce. They don't get along at all, argue constantly and the story really goes nowhere. Near the end of the story, page 371, Quinn "raped her violently."

The story was good until Quinn abandoned her, then it got boring. In the last part when they travelled to America (Georgia), it got even worse. The only interesting part was a German man named Wolf(gang) Brandt. He could have made a good love triangle with Noelle and Quinn and Wolf's sister Anna would have made a good villain but they weren't introduced until the end so there was no time for it. 

At no point in this story did I feel their love for each other, which they declared in the last twenty pages or so. You can feel the dislike between them. So if not for traveling to America and the long separation, this would have gotten a B-rating from me. I like their attitudes. I don't agree with a reviewer on Goodreads saying Noelle has Stockholm Syndrome nor do I agree with a different reviewer there comparing Quinn to Sean Culhane from Stormfire.

GOLDEN ROSES by Patricia Hagan

PUBLISHER: Avon, 9/1983
GENRE: Historical Romance
SETTING: Mexico & USA, 1871

RAPE? Yes, twice

BODICE RIPPER? Yes

BACK COVER: link
MY GRADE: B-

SYNOPSIS: With her dear father dead, Amber Forrest was alone in a foreign land, at the mercy of a cruel, domineering stepbrother who vowed he would bend her to his will and make her his bride.

Forced to fight for her destiny, Amber faced bravely the ravishing storm of two men's passions, her gentleness torn between the vicious stepbrother whose pleasure was her pain...and the rugged American whose tender violence was love.

MY THOUGHTS: The timespan is unclear but it's got to be a least a few months. Most of this takes place in Mexico but starts out with Amber traveling there from Louisiana. She's nineteen and ages aren't given for any of the other characters. We only know that Amber's stepbrother Valdis is eleven years older than his half-sister Maretta. 

Amber's incredibly strong and backs down from no one, male or female, no matter the situation. That makes her not believable at times. She's alone in this world and is fighting to be free from Valdis. The bizarre thing is that Cord Hayden, an American man who she meets in Mexico is trying to help her escape Valdis and take her back to America but she doesn't want his help and doesn't want to go back. Neither makes a lick of sense. Why would she want to stay in a foreign country with no money to her name (Valdis stole her cash) when she's got someone willing to help her?

Cord is partially a good guy. He's from Pennsylvania and fought in the Civil War. He's in Mexico because of a bad incident, a horrible criminal betrayal with an ex-lover named Christine that has turned him against love. Here's what he had to say about her, "Yes, he had loved her, had planned to marry her, and all the time she was a two-timing slut with no more scruples than a worn-out old whore." Another reason I love these older books is because of that quote. You don't get those in newer historical romances. He and Amber are in love with each other but that doesn't happen until after the man Amber's in love with, Armond, is no longer in the picture. He's one of three men who are lusting after her. If we weren't told Amber and Cord love each other, we'd have never known it or felt it. They get along fine except for Amber not wanting him to take her back to America. They're supposedly in love yet never really want to be around each other. They had sex once. Another time Cord has sex with Amber from behind while she's sleeping, which makes it rape. She was angry with him when she woke up and realized what happened. The author failed as far as their love story goes but I do like him.

Valdis is madly obsessed with Amber from the first time he laid eyes on her when he picked her up from the train station. He holds her prisoner in his home (and his stepmother!) and won't give her any freedom. He wants to marry her but she hates him. He forced Allegra, his stepmother from the time he was ten, to give him her property at some point in the past, so the house and everything is his. He's beat her up and even raped her. She's a shell of a person and he keeps her locked in her room. The entire household is scared of him, and everyone in town is too. Amber escapes him many times but he keeps finding her. Except for one time when he smacks Amber and another time he grabs her by the throat, he doesn't harm her physically, which is not fitting with his character. You can sense from the start that he's cruel and will abuse the heck out of her, but strangely, he doesn't. He once told her that after he was finished with her he'd rip her heart out and eat it.

His half-sister, Maretta, hates Amber because the man Maretta wants to marry, Armond, is in love with her and she him. She turns villainous and gets revenge. 

Dolita is the house maid in charge of caring for Amber. While on the run with Amber, a friend of Valdis' rapes her but it's only told, not detailed.

The story becomes a bit boring during the last 160 pages or so. It consists of Amber being on the run from Valdis. He finds her, she escapes, Cord finds her and helps her some, then Valdis finds them, they escape him and so on. Cord meets up with his old military friend, Major Powell and they go on an expedition in Arizona. 

I like the tone of the book, I like the characters Valdis, Maretta, and Cord. It just dragged a lot with Amber being on the run for over 1/3 of the book.

LORD RUIN by Carolyn Jewel

PUBLISHER: Leisure Books, 12/2002

GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance

SETTING: England, 1818

RAPE? Yes

MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: The Duke of Cynssyr didn't believe in love. He planned to marry for beauty. But a night of unforgettable passion left him a changed man—a man tied to a bespectacled spinster. Anne Sinclair's long legs drove him wild with desire, and her quick wit challenged his mind. Ruined for any other, the notorious rake had only one choice: to court his wife. To win her confidence, however, nothing less than his love would do.

Anne Sinclair had sworn to protect her sister from the infamous Lord Ruin. Yet she never expected to sacrifice her own virtue. Forced to give the rogue her hand in marriage, she vowed never to relinquish her heart. But Ruan worshiped her body and valued her intelligence, making Anne long to succumb to the ultimate temptation: falling for her husband.

MY THOUGHTS:  Anne is pretty bland. She's twenty-five, has gray-blue eyes and wears eyeglasses. She doesn't have much of a personality. We didn't get to know her at all. She was just there. That's about all I have to say about her. Ruan Cynssyr, aka "Lord Ruin" is a member of Parliament and former commanding officer in the military. He's got dark brown hair and green eyes. His age is never given. We didn't get any background on him.

About the rape. Anne sprains her ankle while at someone's house. It's bedtime so they put her to bed in the bedroom that Cyn uses when he's at that person's house. She'd doped up on laudanum for the pain. He comes home ahead of schedule early in the morning and finds Anne in his bed. He doesn't recognize her because it's too dark. He assumes she's a prostitute put there by his friend, since its happened before. He proceeds to talk to her, still assuming he's talking to a prostitute who's fallen asleep and is waking up, and is fully willing. Anne is very groggy but speaks to him like a lover would and proceeds to give him oral sex (and she even swallows) then regular sex. He doesn't know she's drugged and since she's drugged, she doesn't even know what she's doing. The scene jumps ahead to everyone in the house finding out what happened, Cyn realizes what he's just done, so they marry the very next day in case she gets pregnant.

I have to admit to liking the murder mystery better than the romance between Anne and Cyn. That saved this book for me but it wasn't introduced properly. Someone is raping and sometimes murdering women. No one sat anyone down and explained what was going on with some of the women in London and it was a bit confusing. I don't understand why Cyn and a few friends are investigating it. He's not a police officer or private investigator and there's no mention of the police being involved. And we weren't told how many women had been killed or raped. And there was a suicide by a pregnant rape victim that came out of nowhere. 

The problem with this book is that Cyn and Anne get married far too soon (p. 52) and they get along great from the start. There's zero conflict between them. He treats her well, doesn't cheat on her, and, well, that's all. Everything is normal between them. I just don't know where a story can go when the marriage happens so soon.

ONLY A PROMISE by Mary Balogh

PUBLISHER: Signet, 6/2015

GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance

SETTING: England, Regency Period

MY GRADE: D

SYNOPSIS: Ralph Stockwood prides himself on being a leader, but when he convinced his friends to fight in the Napoleonic Wars, he never envisioned being the sole survivor. Racked with guilt over their deaths, Ralph must move on . . . and find a wife to secure an heir to his family's title and fortune. Since her Seasons in London ended in disaster, Chloe Muirhead is resigned to spinsterhood. Driven by the need to escape her family, she takes refuge at the home of her mother's godmother, where she meets Ralph. He needs a wife. She wants a husband. So Chloe makes the outrageous suggestion to strike a bargain and get married. One condition: Ralph has to promise that he will never take her back to London. But circumstances change. And to Ralph, it was only a promise.

MY THOUGHTS: This was an absolute bore and a real struggle to get through. Where was the plot? The conflict? Timeline is maybe a month or two and year isn't given. Chloe proposed marriage to Ralph, a stranger, less than fifty pages in because she's twenty-seven and scared of being single the rest of her life. Ralph married her so he could beget heirs. It's to be a marriage without love and affection and that's pretty much how it ends up.

Chloe has a married brother and sister and she lives with her father. Her mother died years before. She still has a broken heart from six years previous. She, and everyone else, suspects that a certain red-haired man is really her biological father so that plays out. I didn't care about it at all.

Twenty-six year old Ralph is dealing with depression which stems from being in the war years before and seeing three of his friends die right in front of him. He's got a long scar across one side of his face and some on his body from the war. He's had past suicidal thoughts and an attempt and was in a facility for it for three years, which ended four years before the story starts. He feels a lot of guilt for being the lone survivor from their group of friends. He's worried the parents of his dead friends hold him responsible for the deaths since he talked them into joining in the first place. He even cries once while thinking about their deaths. He's a bit cold toward Chloe, scared he'll develop feelings for her, which he doesn't want to happen, for some reason. His mother and two of his three sisters are rude to Chloe at first but they come around. 

Knowing of his past suicide attempt is the reason I wanted to read this since things like that, deep stuff, aren't common in historical romances. So I bought this even though the synopsis wasn't appealing. I wish I had left it alone. Ralph's past is the only interesting thing in this entire story. Chloe and Ralph are basically surface level friends after they marry yet they end up falling in love with each other, Ralph, right at the very end of the story, but each keeps it to themselves until the final pages. We're told they're in love but it wasn't felt by me. I like Ralph's character but Chloe was bland as could be.

LORD CAREW'S BRIDE by Mary Balogh

PUBLISHER: Signet, 6/1995

REISSUED: Bantam, 2/2010

GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance

SETTING: England

MY GRADE: A

SYNOPSIS: Jennifer's cousin Samantha Newman is smarting after she too is toyed with by Lord Kersey. In the midst of her heartbreak, she seeks solace from her new friend, the disabled gardener Hartley Wade. If only she knew that Hartley is secretly Lord Carew, and that he hides more than extraordinary wealth: a passionate secret held deep in his heart that only her love can reveal.

MY THOUGHTS: This was very enjoyable right from the start. Hero and heroine meet just eight pages into the story, and it's less than 300 pages. The story takes place six years after Dark Angel, where we first met eighteen-year-old Samantha. She's twenty-four now and less than a year away from inheriting a fortune from her late parents. 

Samantha had her heart broke in the previous novel and that's turned her against falling in love and getting married. She meets Hartley by chance and they become fast friends. She's not attracted to him in a romantic way but he falls in love with her right away.  

Hartley seems slightly depressed. He's your typical nice guy without a bad bone in his body. He even cries a few times. He isn't happy about being single and is very sad when Samantha has to go back to London just a few days after meeting her, so he follows her there in hopes of catching a few glimpses of her without her knowing about it. She's genuinely happy to see him again and agrees to marry him though she's not in love with him. That part was a little too sudden to suit me. At this point she still doesn't know who he really is. She's actually horrified to know he's in love with her. She thinks that the relationship can only go downhill from there if you start out being in love with your spouse. 

Lionel, from Dark Angel, is back from abroad and he's here to stir up drama. A sad secret is revealed about him being involved with Hartley's childhood injury that caused him to become crippled. 

Sir Albert Boyle and Rosalie from Dark Angel are in here. They've been married for six years and have three children.

Jennifer and Gabriel from Dark Angel are in here and have three children.

There's nothing I disliked about this story. I like that Hartley has emotions and though I do prefer alpha males in fiction, I did enjoy reading about the opposite. He's very mild-mannered but we do see him get angry/jealous when he finds out about Samantha's past love interest. 

DARK ANGEL by Mary Balogh

ORIGINAL PUBLICATION: Signet, 8/1994 

REISSUE: Bantam, 2/2010 

GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance

SETTING: England

MY GRADE: B

SYNOPSIS: Jennifer Winwood has been engaged for five years to a man she hardly knows but believes to be honorable and good: Lord Lionel Kersey. Suddenly, she becomes the quarry of London's most notorious womanizer, Gabriel Fisher, the Earl of Thornhill. Jennifer has no idea that she is just a pawn in the long-simmering feud between these two headstrong, irresistible men—or that she will become a prize more valuable than revenge.

MY THOUGHTS: This was better than anticipated but still lacking in the believable love department. Jennifer is your typical easygoing person who's just anxious to get married and start a new life. She's days away from marrying Lionel, whom she barely knows yet is "so very, very dearly" in love with. He's twenty-five and she's twenty. He's got some secrets that get revealed to her at the very end. He was forced by his father into doing the right thing so he makes some confessions. 

Gabriel is twenty-six, and "very dark and very tall." He's become an outcast since everyone in town thinks he's guilty of something that he's really innocent of. He also knows of Lionel's secrets and wants revenge against him so Jennifer is used as a pawn in his game. It backfires. Two people who aren't in love with each other are forced to marry and of course they fall in love with one another in the course of a few days. The span of the story is just a couple weeks. The novel is shorter in length, 300 pages, but there wasn't really a need to condense the timeline within the story. I don't know why Jennifer and Gabriel couldn't have known each other for a few months, at least. So I wasn't happy with that. Another thing that bothered me is that the majority of the story takes place at a couple different parties. 

Jennifer's eighteen-year-old cousin Samantha is in this story almost as much as Jennifer is and I don't like that. Samantha's the star of her own novel, Lord Carew's Bride, so some of her should have been saved for that book. I do like that she's fallen in love with someone she shouldn't have.

I don't understand the title of Dark Angel. I assume it's referring to Jennifer but she's not dark in personality or coloring. The year this takes place wasn't given either, so it's somewhere during the Regency period of 1811-1820.

There's an update on Gabriel and Jennifer in the sequel of sorts, Lord Carew's Bride.

 

DREAMING OF YOU by Lisa Kleypas

PUBLISHER: Avon, 1994

GENRE: Fiction/Historical Romance

SETTING: England

MY GRADE: C

SYNOPSIS: In the shelter of her country cottage, Sara Fielding puts pen to paper to create dreams. But curiosity has enticed the prim, well-bred gentlewoman out of her safe haven—and into Derek Craven's dangerous world. 

A handsome, tough and tenacious Cockney, he rose from, poverty to become lord of London's most exclusive gambling house—a struggle that has left Derek Craven fabulously wealthy, but hardened and suspicious. And now duty demands he allow Sara Fielding into his world—with her impeccable manners and her infuriating innocence. But here, in a perilous shadow-realm of ever-shifting fortunes, even a proper "mouse" can be transformed into a breathtaking enchantress—and a world-weary gambler can be shaken to his cynical core by the power of passion... and the promise of love.

MY THOUGHTS: I don't have much to say about Sara. She's not your typical heroine because she's cavorting behind her boyfriend's back with Derek. She's a twenty-five-year-old author who writes under a pseudonym yet a little boy in her neighborhood asks her how her next book is coming along. Not sure how he knows who she is since the book uses a pen name.

I like Derek even though he has no scruples to speak of. He's around thirty but doesn't know his exact age, which is ridiculous. He was raised by prostitutes and they certainly would have know when or around the year he was born. He's written just like a character from the time this book was published, 1994, or one published earlier, and I do like that a lot. He's gruff. I like learning about his tough background and knowing about all the horrible things he had to do as a child to make money. I want to say I'm glad he got rich and did something with his life but some of the things he did to get said money makes me cringe. 

His ex-mistress Joyce is a villain. I liked her terrible actions but not how she went about them. If you're going to harm someone or try to get revenge like she did quite a few times, including setting someone up to get raped, aren't you going to try hard to keep people from finding out you're behind it? Most would but not her. There's a scene (chapter 8) where Derek does something to her that's quite disturbing. I don't like at all how she was dealt with at the end after a major incident.

There's one ridiculous thing that runs throughout the entire story. Somehow everyone at Craven's just happens to have read a book of Sara's or had it read to them, and they think the fictional character Mathilda is real despite being told by Sara that she's fake. Many people claim to have seen her around town. It was funny the first time someone said it, the poor thing didn't understand what fiction meant, apparently, but the repeated spotting of Mathilda went on for far too long. One other thing that bothers me is that right at the beginning, Sara shoots and kills someone in defense of someone else, and it's basically swept under the rug. In real life the shooter would have to deal with it emotionally but Sara didn't deal with it at all.

I don't know what year this takes place nor the timespan but it seems like maybe a couple months, then the epilogue is around close to a year later. The story was just alright with almost all of it taking place at Derek's establishment, a brothel and gaming house called Craven's. It should have ended right after Derek and Sara got married since it dragged a lot after that. Too much talk of domestic things and clothes. I cannot put my finger on why I feel this way but I just don't think Derek and Sara make a good match.

This is my sixth Kleypas book and the fifth to get no higher than a C-grade. I had to abandon reading Midnight Angel in 2019 at around page 125 because it was so boring. The only one I've liked is Where Passion Leads.

MIDSUMMER MAGIC by Catherine Coulter

PUBLISHER: Onyx, 12/1987
GENRE: Historical Romance
SETTING: Scotland & England, 1810

SERIES: Magic trilogy, #1
MY GRADE: D

SYNOPSIS: Clever, beautiful Frances Kilbracken disguised herself as a mousy Scottish lass to keep Hawk, the notoriously rakish and dashing Earl of Rothermere, from being forced to marry her. But she was chosen as his bride for that very reason. Wedded, bedded, and finally deserted, Frances quickly shed her dowdy facade to become glittering London's most ravishing and fashionable leading lady...only to find she had roused the ire--and ignited the passions--of her faithless husband. But even as Hawk claimed rights to her body, Frances swore never to allow him to enter her heart. How could she trust this man who made women his playthings? yet how could she resist the burning kisses and soft caresses that plundered her yielding flesh...until they reached the deep core of her love...

    

MY THOUGHTS: This was beyond boring and it was a long 412 pages. There really wasn't much of a plotline. Frances, nineteen, didn't want to marry anyone, let alone move to England to marry Hawk, who's twenty-six. She's incredibly immature and not enjoyable to read about. I really came to dislike her. Some reviewers see her first time with Hawk (p 138) as rape but I don't. She made it clear that she didn't want to have sex but gave in when he told her to "just lie there." The third time Hawk wanted to have sex with her she hid in another room. Give me a break. She's always throwing fits, telling Hawk she "hates" him and I got tired of it. She even punched him in the stomach once, told him she wished his "toe would rot off" and wanted him to suffer a head injury. Hawk's not likable either. He's a pretty calm person, doesn't yell but he's always threatening violence towards her and that behavior doesn't really fit with what we see of him. They get along great one minute, start bickering the next for absolutely no reason. They're just really poorly written characters written into a poorly thought-out book.

There's a subplot involving horses and racing that nearly overtook the story. Something criminal is going on with the horses and that I did find interesting but you kind of know who's involved long before it's revealed at the very end but I didn't mind that. And I liked the revelation involving his deceased brother.

There was too much sex in here and the word "cream" (as lube) was mentioned 13 TIMES, three of which were on the same page. But I couldn't have cared less about it because the story was so boring and I didn't care about any of the characters.