Now I Finally Get It!

For quite a while I have read all the rave reviews about Eloisa James, including when she "outed" herself as both a romance novelist and a professor at Fordham University. While I was impressed with her academic credentials, her books seemed rather ho-hum to me -- I read the early novels, including "Potent Pleasures," and found them generally to be too long to support a rather slight story involving younger heroines. It wasn't that I didn't recognize, and appreciate, an almost literary writing style, but perhaps the problem was with me, as it was a time when I had almost stopped reading historical romances, which means I was reading damned few romances period. Jaded. Disappointed again. Whatever...

I believe it was in 2004 that the first book in Ms James series on four sisters living in Regency England was published. The sisters were relatively poor -- their only doweries consist of a racehorse apiece, an interesting premise. "Much Ado About You" attracted much positive buzz, so I decided to give Ms James another try. I was attracted to the premise, but, once again, found the execution to be somewhat lacking for me. For one thing, I have a pet peeve about the overusage of the word "grin," and almost everyone in that book spent a lot of time grinning, sometimes when a smile would have been far more appropriate. The characters were appealing, but the major problem for me was that the hero and heroine of the first book were not as interesting as the secondary characters, especially Annabel.

Enter Annabel in her own novel, "Kiss Me, Annabel." The second in the series, "Kiss me, Annabel" was published last year and has languished in my TBR pile for several months. It was only the publication of the third book in the series that prompted me to pick up the second. Now I finally get it! I don't know if I am just in the right mood for this story or what, but now I understand the Eloisa James following. The hero and heroine, Annabel and Ewan, are fresh and lively. Ewan in particular is a hero not often found in today's romance novel -- technically he is a virgin, although not without great interest in, and some experience of, women; he is religious and frankly talks about his feelings to Annabel (who is more like this reader, in that her interest in orthodoxy is limited), but he is not preachy or pious, nor is he an evangelical (this is NOT an "inspirational" romance). Annabel is a character who grows emotionally and ethically during the course of the novel. The novel has strong suggestions of Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," and that play is alluded to during the course of the couple's trip from England to Scotland. I found this to be a delightful part of the novel, and it greatly increased my reading enjoyment, and respect for Ms James writing.

There is an interesting sub-plot with one of Annabel's younger sisters, a widow, and the rake she is trying to seduce in an attempt to forget her grief over the premature death of her husband. The youngest sister is reintroduced, and will, no doubt, be the subject of the final book in the series. The third book, "The Taming of the Duke," has received mixed reviews, primarily due to even stronger references to English literature (especially to "A Midsummer's Night Dream") throughout the book. If often seems to me that the reasons I enjoy a book are the very reasons others come away dissatisfied -- and I think that is due to the fact that, oddly enough, the romance is not the primary reason for me to read a romance novel. I like a good story well told and the romance is secondary. In the case of "Kiss Me, Annabel," I think those with both points of view will come away satisfied.