New Book Alert: The Dukedom of The Beast by Tiffany Baton; Beauty and The Beast Tale Set in The Regency Era is Rich With Great Characters and Suspense

 

New Book Alert: The Dukedom of The Beast by Tiffany Baton; Beauty and The Beast Tale Set in The Regency Era is Rich With Great Characters and Suspense

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: With apologies to Walt Disney Music, Alan Menken, and the late Howard Ashman, Beauty and The Beast may be a tale as old as time but it still can be the inspiration for a winning Romamce set in any time period. (Actually, as we will soon learn, fairy tales are a huge inspiration for many books set in many time periods.) Tiffany Baton's The Dukedom of the Beast is a Regency era variation of this familiar tale and in of itself is rich with great characters and an engaging suspenseful plot.

Lady Nancy Bolton, daughter of the Duke of Cornington, has her life set out for her. She is engaged to Timothy Lockhart, Marquess of Honeyfiield when at a ball, she is sexually assaulted by Viscount Geralt Hodge. Even though she pushes him off, Nancy is blamed for the event. Unfortunately, this is another tale as old as time: when a woman gets assaulted, she is often the one that is blamed and is judged for it while the man gets off with no punishment whatsoever. Timothy ends the engagement and seeks a bride with a less tarnished reputation. Geralt continues his cred as a rogue with no consequences, will no doubt still be seen as a stud by his friends, and look for other young women to abuse. Nancy is the one left as the subject of scorn and gossip and is socially exiled: a woman with an independent mind and spirit but unable to fit in with the expectations set for her. She is left an outsider with a scarred reputation.

In fact, the only person who would have her is another outsider and there is one. Phillip Wallace, the Duke of Peterhum, is also an outsider left scarred. However, his scars are physical not emotional. An attack left him disfigured and claimed the life of his parents. Since then he has been raised in seclusion by his uncle, Jeremy Wallace. Since Nancy is a childhood friend, he formally requests permission to court Nancy himself. Nancy is incensed at the thought and even more so when her father agrees to the proposal. Then, she goes to meet Phillip herself…

The Dukedom of the Beast is a Regency Romance done right. It doesn't praise the rules and standards of the day, filling it with a false nostalgia. It opens up the double edged sword of a society where a woman can have a damaged reputation or a man can be physically injured by others and they are the one who are the ones who are left abused and abandoned. Nancy and Phillip's conflicts with the ton show that a society that is built on a standard of artifice and perfection is bound to fall when that perfection is rarely achieved.

A humorous dialogue occurs when Nancy and Phillip discuss habits and interests and are found to be incompatible. (She likes the pianoforte, going to the theatre, and reading novels. He likes the violin, reading nonfiction, and horseback riding.) In a normal courtship, more might have been made of those differences, but their loneliness and mutual understanding transcends those differences as they see the world through each other's eyes.

Both Nancy and Philip are imperfect people and their relationship prospers because of that imperfection. In fact, they develop an understanding and empathy towards each other that they may not have had if they weren't mutual outsiders.

Once Nancy and Phillip find that common ground and develop an understanding, complications occur that trouble their courtship. Phillip is attacked by an unknown assailant. Nancy is being stalked by a mysterious disguised figure and a wing of Phillip's estate is set on fire. 

The perpetrator behind these events is revealed in a well done plot twist that is a decent surprise. This twist also plays into the repressed frustrations of the day when some people feel that they aren't given their due. They have very little in their lives that they can claim is theirs and are driven by boredom and frustration to the point of insanity. 

The Dukedom of the Beast is a brilliant commentary on the Regency period and reveals that sometimes those that are outside of society  understand and love each other. Once those standards are removed, they no longer see the beastly and instead they recognize the beauty.

Weekly Reader: Bared To The Wicked Baron by Ava McAdams; Captivating Regency Romance But With A Very Misleading Title

 

Weekly Reader: Bared To The Wicked Baron by Ava McAdams; Captivating Regency Romance But With A Very Misleading Title

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: In the Romance genre, certain things sell and are as  omnipresent as scary things are to a Stephen King novel. Sex sells as shown by the covers featuring barely dressed lovers wrapped in each other's arms. Certain time periods sell as shown by the glut of historical romances, particularly during the Regency Era. Certain words in the title, like "Wicked," Naughty,"  "Forbidden," "Sinful," and "Passion," sell as well. Those words reveal something dark and forbidden about the romance that Readers are about to indulge into. It's a business decision, but at times it is an unnecessary one especially when the title is extraordinarily misleading.

Take Ava McAdams' novel Bared To The Wicked Baron. It would be a halfway decent Regency era Romance of a couple getting to know each other despite outside forces attempting to break them up. 

However the title Bared To The Wicked Baron suggests something else. It suggests something more salacious and sultrier than what we get and it seems to do so only to sell the book to more Readers.

The titular Baron is nowhere near wicked. Sir Phillip Andrews, The Baron of Havordshire, is actually a sweet, but private baron who is caring for his ailing mother. He has been steadily losing money and now resides in a humble cottage to care for her. He has a few loyal servants, but he does much of the nursing himself. Because of this, he doesn't have a lot of time to do the usual social routine of a man among the ton. His friends convince him to spend one night away at a ball so he can finally relax. Now does this sound remotely wicked to you?

He is not wicked in temperament nor in reputation. I could sort of understand if Phillip harbored a reputation of being wicked to ward women away from him so they, and the Reader, don't know that he is caring for his mother leaving his family problems to be a surprise. Perhaps it could be the hidden heart inside his Byronic reputation. But his family conflict is revealed in the second chapter. No one describes or refers to Phillip as wicked and he never behaves that way. Arthur Thistlewood from The Second Mrs. Thistlewood has more right to the adjective than Phillip does. At most Phillip could be private, maybe secretive. Were Bared To The Private or Secretive Baron taken as titles?

Because he has been AWOL from social duties, Phillip's friends warn that his time may be up pursuing young viable women to be brides and give birth to his heirs without looking like an aging fool. Another character running out of time is Helena, daughter of the Earl of Brimsey. She is 27 years old and missed an earlier Season, because of her family's dwindled finances. Now her parents say better late than never and she needs to be married before it's too late. Naturally she goes to the same ball in which Phillip is dragged. The two meet, share a dance, and begin to fall in love.

Their courtship is rushed. That could be attributed to their ages in a time period where they were expected to already be married and the implied anxiety that would happen in a time period where death in childbirth is far from unheard, when late in life pregnancies can produce many long term complications, and when the medical profession amounted to guesswork.  Helena and Phillip's courtship is steamy in that it's an emotional release for a long delayed dream, one that satisfies them on a personal level. They are a nice decent couple that couldn't be further from villainous if they tried.

There is a wicked character in the book that complicates Helena and Phillip's courtship. They use underhanded means to come between the couple like physical attacks and secret confidences. More cannot be revealed but that person is definitely not a baron. This character has some development but it is revealed too late since they are unbearable and annoying throughout. In fact, their villainy is pretty transparent and certainly not compelling. 

Bared To The Wicked Baron is a decent romance but it promises to be something else. With so many words that could have been chosen for the title, wicked should not have been one of them.

New Book Alert: The Awakening of the Lost Baroness by Hazel Linwood; Sharp Brisk Plot Driven Regency Era Romance

 

New Book Alert: The Awakening of the Lost Baroness by Hazel Linwood; Sharp Brisk Plot Driven Regency Era Romance

By Julie Sara Porter

Bookworm Reviews

Spoilers: Regency Romance #2 is The Awakening of The Lost Baroness by Hazel Linwood. Similar to The Heiress of Epsom by Hedley J. Huntt, both take great detail to explore the Regency era with its elegant style, rigid class snobbery, and literature that explored both the witty and passionate sides of the people that lived within it. 

However Huntt and Linwood differ in their approaches. The Heiress of Epsom had a few bursts of plot but brimmed with a pair of likeable characters. By contrast, The Awakening of the Lost Baroness had characters who are less defined but are surrounded by a plot that is a lot more engaging, sharper, and has a few interesting twists.

Amanda Jonson lived her life as a commoner until on her mother's deathbed, the older woman revealed the truth: She was once a maid who was secretly engaged to a Baron's son. When the family found out, the Baron was forced to end the marriage and marry a more acceptable woman. Amanda was finally welcomed into her father, the Baron of Foley's family and is accepted by him, her grandmother, and younger half-sister, Patricia.

She also attracts the romantic attention of Lord Henry, the Earl of Sutcliffe. Unfortunately, Patricia is also in love with him, much to the delight of his mother, and Amanda's grandmother wants to set Amanda up with the Duke of Avery.

The plot moves along at a brisk pace,so brisk that we don't always get to know the characters. The revelation of Amanda's family ties are revealed before the events of the book, so we don't get to know what her former life was like, her mother as a person (besides Amanda remembering her after death), how she feels about her sudden windfall, or the family and Henry's initial reaction about her and vice versa. 

The book is set five years after the reveal and Amanda is already settled into the family. A couple of early chapters or a prologue would help to establish her as a character.

However in this case, the plot moves the characters rather than the other way around. When Amanda's father is taken ill, the question of her marriageability becomes important. She is taken to London to meet Avery. Meanwhile, Henry has made his choice to wed Amanda and he will disinherit himself to do it. He also moves to London to make his own way in the world, either through the army or investing in other friend's businesses.

 It is a bit contrived that both would find their way to London, but since they live in a rural area and London is the central hub of contemporary life at the time, it makes sense.

There are some pretty tense scenes that reveal that in a Regency Era Romance, all is not necessarily fancy dress balls and invitations to tea with Grandmama. Amanda, Patricia, and their grandmother are invited to the opera and Amanda is invited to sit in Avery's box seat. It is in Avery's box seat that he attempts to rape her. Only Amanda's fast feet save her from becoming victimized by the Duke's brutality.

 Besides the deplorable actions of the Duke, even worse is the behavior of her Grandmother who still wants her granddaughter to go through with marrying Avery even after Amanda tells her what he did. ("He is not….the gentleman that he should be, but we are doing this for your own good," Grandma says like a "loving" grandmother should.)

The only one who will defend her is Henry and he is prepared to do so with pistols during a duel. The duel chapter captures how high the stakes can be in such a potentially dangerous situation. It also fortunately takes the romance out of such a conflict by revealing it for the bloody destructive mess that it is, even when both parties survive.

There are some points that leave one scratching their heads especially when it's revealed that much of the plot was orchestrated by some scheming characters. In reality, such characters would be revealed as sociopaths and certainly deserve to be estranged from the others or punished more than they are, but that does not happen. Retribution is cast aside for Happy Ever After.

Where The Heiress of Epsom takes a meandering time where the Reader gets to know the characters, The Awakening of the Baroness speeds through so the Reader can see the world around the characters. Both offer loving tributes to an era that is worth exploring again and again through literature.