REVIEW: The Viscount Who Loved Me (book) by Julia Quinn

The Viscount Who Loved Me is historical romance, the second book in Quinn's Bridgertons series. I got my copy from a used bookstore.

Review:

When Anthony Bridgerton's father was 38, he was stung by a bee and died. Anthony idolized his father, and his death affected him deeply. When Anthony decides, at age 29, that it's time for him to settle down and produce an heir, his father's fate is constantly on his mind. He is convinced he won't live to see 39, and so he's determined to marry someone he is unlikely to fall in love with.

Edwina Sheffield seems like the perfect candidate - stunningly beautiful and reasonably intelligent, but with nothing about her that affects Anthony on a deeper level. Unfortunately, Edwina has publicly stated that she won't marry anyone her older sister, Kate, doesn't approve of, and Kate loathes Anthony for his reputation as a rake. As they get to know each other, Kate realizes that Anthony is a better man than she first thought, and Anthony realizes that Kate is very much a woman he could fall in love with. But there's still the issue of Edwina, and Anthony's bone-deep belief that he will die young.

Romancing Mister Bridgerton (book) by Julia Quinn

I was first introduced to Colin Bridgerton in Quinn's When He Was Wicked and just knew I had to read the book in which he starred. This is that book. While I'm glad I finally got to read it, I'm disappointed with how it turned out.

By the way, the title is a bit misleading. It makes it sound as though Penelope purposefully seduces Colin at some point in the book. She does not. What she does is be herself, and Colin finally starts to notice her as more than just a fixture in his life.

Synopsis:

Penelope Featherington fell in love with Colin Bridgerton just before her 16th birthday. He was gorgeous, well-liked, and charming, and she was the awkward wallflower who could barely hold a conversation with people she didn't know. She knew that nothing would ever come of her feelings for him, but that didn't stop her from dreaming, until she overheard him telling his brothers that he wouldn't marry her. It hurt her feelings and crushed her dreams, but she and Colin did remain friends, mostly because Penelope was still friends with his sister Eloise.

Years later, little has changed. Colin travels a lot, and Penelope, now 28 years old, has resigned herself to being a spinster. Lady Danbury (a delightful elderly woman who has popped up in other books by Quinn) has made the exciting announcement that she will give 1000 pounds to the person who figures out Lady Whistledown's identity - Lady Whistledown is the pseudonym for the person who has been publishing gossip about the ton for the past 11 years. While everyone is speculating about Lady Whistledown, Colin is finally starting to realize that Penelope is more intelligent, witty, and fun to be around than he ever gave her credit for.

Review:

Oh, what a difference the second half of a book can make.

I want to be clear on this: when I was still only halfway through the book, I considered it a keeper. Penelope was wonderful: truly shy around anyone she didn't know well, with a few horribly painful/embarrassing moments in her life that Quinn actually took the time to show. I cringed in sympathy when Penelope came upon Colin just as he was telling his brothers that he wouldn't marry her and Penelope did what she could to preserve her dignity and not make it too obvious that he had just crushed her dreams. I enjoyed watching Penelope blossom as she resigned herself to being an old maid. Her friendship with Lady Danbury warmed my heart, and I loved it when they both confessed to attending horrible Smith-Smythe musicales so that the one Smith-Smythe girl who realized they were awful would have someone in the audience who was not making fun of her.

I loved Colin, too. He was a nice guy, and never hurt Penelope on purpose. He felt miserable when she overheard him saying that he wouldn't marry her – it's just that he was too immature, at that point in his life, to know how to best handle the situation. Later on in their lives, when there was another moment when he could have accidentally hurt her feelings, she stopped him, and he took that time to think about the potential consequences of his actions and how Penelope might be hurt by them. Then he deliberately did his best not to hurt her. Colin wasn't in love with Penelope then and hadn't yet realized that a wonderful person had been right under his nose for years, but he still liked her, and I could have hugged him for the kind and thoughtful way he handled that moment.

There's no way I can properly gripe about what Quinn did in the second half (last third?) of the book without spoiling things, so, if you don't like spoilers, stop reading this review at this point (or, don't click the “Read more” link).

When He Was Wicked (book) by Julia Quinn

My first book post of the year!

Beware - there are lots and lots of spoilers below. I couldn't seem to help myself.

Synopsis:

This book is set primarily in London in the early 1800s.

Michael has been in love with Francesca for years. Unfortunately, she is happily married to Michael's beloved cousin John, so all Michael can do is hide his feelings as best he can by cultivating a reputation as a rake. Then, quite suddenly, John dies.

As long as Francesca is not found to be pregnant with his child and does not give birth to it if she is, Michael is the new Earl of Kilmartin in his place. Michael doesn't want any of it. He may have been in love with Francesca, but he never wanted John to die, and he doesn't want to be made to take John's place. Francesca does turn out to be pregnant, but she miscarries. All Francesca wants is for Michael, her friend and a person she knows loved John as much as she did, to comfort her and share her pain. Instead, Michael withdraws from her, and it only gets worse when she tells him that, had she not miscarried, she would have wanted Michael to help her raise John's child. This is the last straw for Michael, and he goes to India to escape. He doesn't come back for 4 years.

When he does come back, both his and Francesca's grief have softened. They both still miss John, but the feelings aren't as raw. Francesca still doesn't know that Michael loves her (for 6 years now), and it's like rubbing salt on the wound when she tells Michael that she would like a baby and plans to find a husband in order to accomplish this goal. Francesca doesn't expect to love the person she marries, but marriage is the only socially acceptable way for her to get the baby she wants.

Michael had planned to just stand by while Francesca found someone new. Although he didn't really want to, he even tried to help out a little, because he didn't want Francesca to end up with someone terrible. Eventually, however, it all gets to be too much. During a moment when Francesca finally sees Michael as a man, and not just as a friend, Michael kisses her. Horrified at having enjoyed it, Francesca runs off, and Michael eventually pursues her, seduces her (giving her ample opportunity to tell him to back off, which she never does, which just adds to her feelings of guilt later), and asks her to marry him. Francesca, whose feelings are a muddled mix of guilt, passion, and confusion, can't bring herself to say yes, even as she can't bring herself to turn him away.

Michael has already had his epiphany and moved beyond the guilt he's felt for years. For things to really work out between the two of them, Francesca somehow has to sort out her feelings as well.

Post-vacation post

I now have my new kitten! She was a bit scared at first, but once I broke out the jingle ball toys she got over that. She's already got me Googling ways to keep cats from playing with electrical cords, but, other than that, we're getting along fine so far. Of course, she's only actually been with me for a few hours, but watching her attack jingle balls gives me good feelings. We even played something that sort of resembled fetch.

I figured that, in addition to kitten stuff, I'd also write about my vacation reading. With all the niece-watching I did, I ended up having plenty of time to read (and massive amounts of time for TV watching, which may have reawakened my addiction to House).

Here's the stuff I managed to finish:

• Evan Can Wait (book) by Rhys Bowen - I mentioned this author and her Constable Evans books as read-alikes for M.C. Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, but I had never actually read any of Bowen's Constable Evans books. I decided to fix this, and it was a good decision. I can now say from personal experience that the Constable Evans books are definitely good read-alike suggestions for those who liked the Hamish Macbeth books. In this particular book, Evan Evans has the annoying task of watching out for a bunch of people filming a documentary about the recovery of a WWII plane. The most insufferable of the documentary people is murdered, and Evan must figure out who did it. The case ends up being tied to a bit of local history about some paintings that had been hidden in the slate mines during WWII.
• Evanly Bodies (book) by Rhys Bowen - I loved Evan Can Wait, so I figured I'd try another Constable Evans book. These two books, by the way, were the only Constable Evans books I could get hold of at the library right away, but it doesn't appear to matter much which book in the series you start with. Like Beaton's Hamish Macbeth books, all you end up missing out on is a little character history. In Evan Can Wait, Evan was stressing out about his girlfriend and whether she might want to go back to her ex-husband. He hoped to marry her but hadn't asked yet. In this book, the two of them are newly weds. Evan has to deal with what appears to be a serial killer who targets husbands, stressful changes at work, and a Pakistani family whose daughter runs away and may be in danger.
• Ready or Not (book) by Meg Cabot - This is the only YA novel I read during my vacation, and I almost didn't finish it. I got it because I remembered that Cabot is very highly regarded over at Forever Young Adult, but it didn't instantly grab me, so I almost quit after the first 20 pages or so. The end of my vacation swooped in, I only had three days left to read anything, and this was the shortest book in the pile of library books I hadn't read yet, so I decided to finish it - good decision. Samantha (aka Sam) has a lot to deal with in this book: she finds out her new life drawing class involves drawing naked people (in particular, a naked guy, her first naked guy ever); David, her boyfriend and the President's son, asks her to go to Camp David with him and his family, which she is sure means that he wants to have sex, something she's not sure she's ready for; and her conflict about sex and losing her virginity spills over into all sorts of other areas of her life. For those who are worrying that all this thinking about sex means that there's a graphic sex scene, rest assured that that's not the case. Reading about all of Sam's worries made me wish I could help talk her through them - she's an extremely likable character.
• Dream Gold: Knights in the Dark (manga, vol. 1) by Tasurou Nakanishi - In this volume, the main characters join a group in which each individual is dedicated to finding a mysterious treasure hidden somewhere in the city. While this one wasn't necessarily bad, it didn't grab me at all. I have no interest in reading any other volumes of the series. Something about it reminded me a little of GetBackers, only the characters in GetBackers are more interesting.
• Otomen (manga, vol. 1) by Aya Kanno - I liked Aya Kanno's Blank Slate and wanted to try this series. Happily, the library had volume 1. Unfortunately, I could find no other volumes on the shelves - I loved this volume, and definitely plan on reading more. The only issue I can see is that this could end up being a one-note series that gets stale quickly. In this volume, Asuka appears to be the proper manly ideal. What others don't know about him is that he secretly likes girlie things, like handicrafts, cooking, and cute animals. He falls in love with a clueless girl who likes macho stuff and meets a guy who starts off as his romantic rival and becomes something like a friend. What Asuka doesn't know is that this guy is actually a manga artist and author who's been basing his hit shojo series on Asuka's life. In case this description hasn't already made it obvious, this series is nothing like Kanno's Blank Slate. Kanno is a brave person to tackle such completely different tones.
• The Kindaichi Case Files: The Gentleman Thief (manga, I didn't write down which volume this is) story by Yozaburo Kanari, art by Fumiya Sato - I've liked other Kindaichi Case Files volumes I've read, although not enough to seek them out and buy them. A mysterious thief called the Gentleman Thief has been stealing works of art and altering their real-life subjects (for instance, stealing a painting of a tree and then clipping the tree to look like the thief's symbol). None of this is very sinister until the Gentleman Thief targets a particular artist who became famous after painting a portrait of his daughter as he imagined she would look like years later. Several paintings are stolen, several people are killed. This was a nice, interesting mystery - I had fun trying to figure out who the killer was. I like the art style, too.
• Millennium Snow (manga, vol. 1) by Bisco Hatori - A terminally ill girl meets a vampire who could save her life and make her live a thousand years just by drinking her blood. Unfortunately for her, he doesn't want to. If I remember right, this series is very brief, and I can see why. As a vampire romance (or werewolf romance, if you count the guy who shows up later in this volume), it's not very good. The supernatural stuff isn't very prominent, and the romance didn't prompt any fangirl feelings on my part.
• What Happens in London (book) by Julia Quinn - This one was a very good choice for a vacation read. It was fast-paced and fun, and the suspense bits didn't get very dark. When I picked it up, I had no idea that it involved characters first introduced in The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever, the only other book by Quinn I've read. I found this one to be much more enjoyable than that one - for one thing, the hero was much less of a jerk. This particular book features Miranda's friend Olivia, who has more suitors than she knows what to do with, and not a single suitor who cares to look past her pretty face and figure out what she's really like. The courtship through windows was wonderful, and I loved the proposal.

These are the books I didn't finish:

• In a Gilded Cage (book) by Rhys Bowen - I didn't dislike this book, but it didn't really grab me, either, and that just won't do for vacation reading. I much prefer Bowen's Evan Evans books.
• The Black Gryphon (book) by Mercedes Lackey - This was the very first book by Lackey that I ever read - I was a teenager on a gryphon kick. I've since read this many times. I took it with me to read on the plane and did not allow myself to read it at all once I got myself a stack of library books. That's pretty much the only reason I didn't finish it.

The Secret Diaries of Miss Miranda Cheever (book) by Julia Quinn

Synopsis:

At the age of 10, Miranda Cheever showed no signs of Great Beauty. Even she knew that, although she didn't particularly like it when a girl named Fiona rubbed it in her face. It was shortly after this event that she fell in love with her best friend Olivia's 19-year-old brother, Viscount Turner. He told her he thought violet ribbons looked nice in brown hair. He also told her that she should keep a journal, "Because someday you're going to grow into yourself, and you will be as beautiful as you already are smart. And then you can look back into your diary and realize just how silly little girls like Fiona Bennet are. And you'll laugh when you remember that your mother said your legs started at your shoulders. And maybe you'll save a little smile for me when you remember the nice chat we had today." At the time, Turner had only wanted to make Miranda, a serious girl with large, sad eyes, happy. He had no way of knowing that his words would stay with Miranda for the next ten years.

While Miranda quietly suffered unrequited love, Turner fell madly in love with and married a horrible woman who cheated on him multiple times and finally died when she fell off the horse she was riding to meet her lover. The experience soured him towards both love and marriage, and, that night after his wife's funeral, he both kisses Miranda and behaves cruelly towards her. Miranda isn't sure what to think. On the one hand, she loves Turner, hopes his heart can heal, and hopes she can help his heart heal. On the other hand, the Turner she fell in love with may be dead and gone forever - why not consider Winston, Olivia's twin brother, who seems much like Turner was before marriage made him bitter?

In the end, though, Miranda can't seem to help but love Turner. She hates that her love is apparently unrequited, that he can dance with her and kiss her without feeling anything more than attraction, but there are always moments when it seems like he might one day be able to feel for her what she feels for him.

Eventually, the two do end up having sex. Afterward, after coming to his senses, Turner is well aware that, should anyone find out what they'd done, Miranda's reputation would be ruined, so he decides he'll do the honorable thing and marry her. Unfortunately, he dawdles for a couple months, quite enough time for Miranda to realize that she's pregnant and figure out what her next step should be. By the time Turner goes to find her at her grandparents' place in Scotland, she'd already miscarried, but he insisted that the two of them get married anyway. Although it breaks her heart that he still sees their marriage only as his duty, Miranda reluctantly agrees to marry him.

However incapable Turner is of saying "I love you," he has no problems with Miranda in bed, and it's not long before she's pregnant again. He thinks their marriage is a perfectly blissful one, but his inability to say the three words she wants to hear the most weighs heavily on Miranda, to the point where they rarely see each other near the end of her pregnancy. It isn't until Miranda has given birth to their daughter that Turner realizes he really does love Miranda and that this revelation isn't nearly as terrifying and horrible as the thought it would be . Unfortunately, Miranda lost a lot of blood during the birthing, and it doesn't look like she'll live long. To Turner's great joy, she does survive and is able to both name her child and hear the words she's always wanted to hear Turner say: "I love you."

Commentary:

I enjoyed this book, even if my synopsis sounds pretty depressing. It's weird: I alternated between hating Turner (whenever he acted bitter, immature, or just generally like an idiot) and really liking him (whenever he and Miranda actually got along). As far as I'm concerned, Turner's best moment was at the beginning of the book - I wanted to hug him for everything he told Miranda, even as I couldn't believe he didn't realize he was practically guaranteeing she'd develop a major crush on him. After that point, Turner did almost everything else wrong. Even though he knew Miranda wanted him to say he loved her, and even though he knew he couldn't, he still kissed her and slept with her. Even though he went and proposed to Miranda after sleeping with her, it took him two months to get around to it and he only really did it because he felt it was his duty. Every time he turned around, he was saying (or not saying) something that hurt Miranda.

I felt like Miranda deserved better, but, unfortunately, there wasn't really any better to be had. Olivia was like the sun to Miranda's moon - men flocked to Olivia and only went to Miranda if Olivia intimidated them too much or she was surrounded by too many people to make approaching her possible. Winston was the closest thing Turner had to a rival, and he wasn't really all that much of one. Miranda saw Winston as a younger, less bitter version of Turner rather than as himself, something that could never have gone very far and certainly would not have ended well.

The one thing that kept me from completely disliking Turner, aside from his occasional flashes of charm, was that, for the most part, he was aware that his behavior towards Miranda sucked. He knew he hurt her, he hated that he hurt her, he just couldn't make himself say the words he knew she wanted to hear, even though he kind of thought he might even mean those words.

I had never read any other Julia Quinn books before reading this one, although I now think that, the next time I head over to the used bookstore that's got all those 75% off books, I need to pick up everything I can find that she's written. When it comes to what I think is important in a romance novel, the emotional content, this book packed quite a punch. Even when I found myself disliking Turner and wishing that Miranda could just tell him to go to hell and then walk away without looking back, I couldn't put this book down. With romance novels, you always know there will be a happy ending (thank goodness), so I wasn't so much interested in how things would end as how the happy ending would be accomplished. How would Turner come to the realization that he had been an idiot? What would bring him to finally tell Miranda he loved her?

And then Quinn had me in tears when Miranda was seemingly on her death bed after giving birth to her daughter. Turner had finally, finally realized that he loved Miranda and that this was not a bad thing, and Miranda didn't even know. I knew that Miranda would be just fine, but that didn't stop me from crying at the thought that she might not be fine, that Turner would never get to tell her he loved her, and that she would never get to see her daughter.

The title of this book initially had me worried that it would be in diary format - I hate it when authors try things like that, because, in my opinion, it rarely works. However, the diary entries were only a small portion of the book, with the only odd one being the pseudo diary entry Miranda composes in her mind as she is dying (this sort of thing is exactly why I tend to hate books written in "special" formats - it forces the authors to bend over backwards and break the format's rules if they want to present something that doesn't quite fit the format they've decided upon). Overall, this was a really enjoyable book. I plan to read more of Quinn's stuff - I can only imagine how much I'd like one of her books if I liked the hero more.

Read-alikes:

• Whitney, My Love (book) by Judith McNaught - I have yet to read anything by this author, but I think I may have to try her, because it sounds like her writing style might be similar to Quinn's. I chose this particular book for this list because it also contains a childhood infatuation, although, from the sounds of things, the heroine in this book discovers that her childhood love is not the person she really wants to end up with.
• Rendezvous (book) by Amanda Quick - Another Regency romance with a hero whose deceased wife had been cheating on him. In addition to that similarity, Quick and Quinn also have somewhat similar writing styles. This book features a suspense subplot, in which the heroine is trying to prove that her brother was not a traitor.
• Portrait of My Heart (book) by Patricia Cabot - I haven't actually read this one, or anything by the author. It just sort of came up during my search for more books for this list. Anyway, I chose it because it's another historical romance with a heroine and hero who have known each other for years. In this book, it's the hero, Jeremy, who's been wanting to marry the heroine for years, but Maggie, the heroine, doesn't believe herself to be duchess material and ends up getting engaged to another. Like Turner, Jeremy has some less than stellar qualities, and yet he still somehow manages to be endearing.