Review: Season for Desire by Theresa Romain

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Theresa Romain's Season for Desire takes a very different approach to the other three books in the series. The first three books are very straightforward romances and focus on the interaction between the hero and heroine, but, in Season for Desire, Romain's plot involves the following:
1. The Quest for lost treasure
2. The Love Stories (yes, plural)
3. The interaction between the main hero and heroine
4. A villain
5. Lots of interesting side characters

Giles Rutherford and his father are in England to find his mother's jewels, which disappeared without a trace before her elopement to Giles's father. With no leads, except for his father's blind faith in his wife's final words, they've cut a trail through London and nearby towns, and now they've found themselves in an inn in York and recruited by the angry Earl of Alleyneham who is chasing after his youngest daughter, whom he believes has eloped.

Except Audrina hadn't actually eloped -- she had been kidnapped by her former lover, David Llewelyn, who has designs on her dowry, and plans to gain it by fair means or fowl.

It gets a bit confusing at this point, but Audrina's father orchestrates a deal with the Rutherfords: allow Audrina to accompany them (and Lady Irving), and he would tell them about a clue to Giles's mother's jewels. The clue is a jewel box, gifted by the late Mrs Rutherford to Lady Sophy Parr. It's unclear to me whether the treasure hunters were unexpected guests or not, but the Parrs are a strange and very casual family, that everyone was welcomed anyway. The story shifts slightly as the author focuses on the idiosyncrasies of the Parrs, especially Lady Sarah, who married the Viscount of Dudley's late son, Jack.

Lady Sophy is interesting -- slightly odd, and thoroughly enamored with astronomy. She received the Japanese puzzle box from Giles's mother, and never thought to try to open it. Now, Giles, his father, and Audrina try to figure it out. Sarah doesn't really get involved, content to sit and either reminisce about the late Mrs Rutherford's kindness to her, or to hide away in her observatory and look out at the stars. But the author takes time to delve into her backstory and the strange circumstances of her marriage. (She gets her own love story as the story progresses.)

When it was revealed that the clue was a Japanese puzzle box (himitsu bako), I really did wonder whether Giles or Audrina could get it open, because, as mentioned in the story, these boxes are very difficult to solve. And it does take Giled and Audrina chapter upon chapter of figuring out the combination, but they never really make any headway. While tedious, and a bit plodding, these captors did succeeding furthering Giles and Audrina's friendship. While they met on strange circumstances, and thrust together in stranger terms, Giles and Audrina discover a kinship -- they're able to share their thoughts and feelings about their families to one another.

Giles is the oldest, and knows he must look after his sisters. His father is a bit flaky, so it's all on Giles to make sure everything is running smoothly. He worries for his father, and he worries for his sisters, and he worries for himself -- but he has never said all this out loud, until Audrina.

Giles wanted to throttle whoever had coined the word adventure. Everything was an adventure to Richard Rutherford, from days on sleet-sludgy roads to his grandiose plan to establish a London jewelry firm to rival Rundell and Bridge.
- p. 10

But the connection between the wasn't instant: Giles initially thought Audrina was spoiled and entitled, and Audrina thought Giles was too ... American.

As the youngest, Audrina has had to live in the shadows of her older sisters all her life, and then she has had to live up to her father's very high expectations of her. It's been a suffocating and restricted life for Audrina, and this stint in the countryside proves to be liberating.

"...There are five of me within my own family. I could do nothing that had not already been done first or better. So I could only do things last and worst."
- p. 255

The leap between loathing to love is a bit big -- I don't recall Audrina being attracted to Giles, and, while Giles thought Audrina was beautiful, there wasn't really any strong, or compelling desire. Perhaps that is the author's point? To show that love doesn't have to be intense, and passionate, but that it can grow quietly?

There are three other relationships tackled in the story:
1. Giles's father and Lady Irving
2. Audrina's sister, Charissa, and the Duke of Walpole
3. Lady Sophy and Millicent Corning

Add to the quest for the missing jewels, Giles and Audrina must contend with Audrina's kidnapper and ex-lover, who is threatening blackmail. Taken individually, or even two at a time, these combinations of love stories and villains and treasure hunt could make for a strong and memorable story, but, tackled all at once, it diluted a lot of this novel's potency.

Season of Desire is Book 4 in Theresa Romain's The Holiday Pleasures Series. To find out more about Theresa Romain and her books, click below:
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Blog Tour: Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress by Theresa Romain (Review + Giveaway)

I'm so, so pleased to spotlight Theresa Romain's Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress, the latest instalment in her The Matchmaker Trilogy. Augusta and Joss's book was released last January 6, and to celebrate the release, Sourcebooks Casablanca is giving away five (5) copies of It Takes Two to Tangle (book 1 in the trilogy). Enter via Rafflecopter below.

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About the book:

Title: Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress
Series: The Matchmaker Trilogy #3
Author: Theresa Romain
ISBN: 978-1-4022-8405-2
Pubdate: January 6th, 2015

One good proposition deserves another ...

Heiress Augusta Meredith can’t help herself -- she stirs up gossip wherever she goes. A stranger to Bath society, she pretends to be a charming young widow, until sardonic, darkly handsome Joss Everett arrives from London and uncovers her charade.

Augusta persuades Joss to keep her secret in exchange for a secret of his own. Weaving their way through the treacherous pitfalls of a polite world only too eager to expose and condemn them, they begin to see that being true to themselves is not so bad ... as long as they’re true to each other…

Historical romance author Theresa Romain pursued an impractical education that allowed her to read everything she could get her hands on. She then worked for universities and libraries, where she got to read even more. Eventually she started writing, too. She lives with her family in the Midwest.

* * *

An Excerpt:

She tilted her head, setting the loose curl free again. “Are you doing what you wish?”

Doing what he wished? No, of course he wasn’t.

Right now he wished he could make her smile as she had when giving away her gloves. He wished he could dispense with his conscience and plead for her to take him as a lover. He wished he could pluck the pins from her sunset hair and send it tumbling over her naked skin, wished he could stop kissing her only to make her cry out in pleasure.

But always, in the face of a wish, came prosaic reality. A scarred wooden table, a plate of mutton and potatoes, a wedge of cheese. An adequate fire and a roof over one’s head. Such a reality was perfectly acceptable, even if it didn’t hold the luster of a gemlike fantasy.

“I try to wish,” he said in a calm voice, “for what I know I might attain. For respectable employment for a reasonable wage. For a reasonable employer.”

This brought a faint smile to her features, but the expression fell away in another instant. “That seems a very small dream.”

“What on earth do you mean by that? It’s a very suitable dream.”

“But it’s not really a dream, is it? It’s what you have now, just shuffled about a bit.”

Again, he folded his arms. She lifted her hands, placating. “As you say, it’s perfectly suitable. And if you insist that it’s exactly what you want, then I suppose it is a dream, after all.”

Of course it wasn’t a dream. It was good sense. It was practicality. “I don’t know what else I ought to wish for. This is my life. I am a man of business for a nobleman.” Remembering Chatfield’s words, he added, “I am not in bodily danger, nor in mortal peril. It could be far worse.”

“It could be. But if you want it to be better ...”

“Not everyone is fortunate enough to be able to buy happiness.”

“No one is fortunate enough for that.” She turned over her fork and scratched the tines into the surface of the table. “That’s not what I meant. I know happiness can’t be bought, or I would have bought it.”

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My Review:

After having read almost all of Theresa Romain's books (I haven't read Season for Desire), I've come to appreciate Theresa Romain's wonderful sense of humour -- her novels are fun to read, and she's really able to imagine smart-funny moments between her characters, revealing sharp minds and clever wits. Which brings me to the second thing I love about Romain's books: she writes her characters very well: they are multi-faceted and many-layered -- granted some facets are chipped and/or cracked, and some layers are wrinkly and/or frayed, but that is all part of the charm of the world she makes.

In Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress, Augusta is a woman who has it all: she's the sole heiress to her family's beauty business and is about to take control over her own fortune (both in the financial sense and the future-destiny sense), but Augusta lacks the two things she longs for the most: her parents and love. She's in Bath with her friend, Lady Tallant -- both of them seeking to recover from events that have left them both a bit bruised and hurting.

There are three things to pay attention to when reading Theresa Romain's latest novel:
1. The scandalous reason why Augusta Meredith, heiress to Meredith Beauty, is in Bath masquerading as a widow
2. The blackmail plot that Joss Everett is trying to solve
3. The dynamic between Augusta, wealthy heiress whose fortune came from trade, and Joss, blue-blood, albeit half-blood who is employed by his cousin

"I cannot allow anyone to have that sort of control over me. Once I trusted a man too much, and he abandoned me. This time, I shall do the choosing. All I require is a lover. I will take him, then leave him, when I see fit."
- loc 190

At the beginning of the story, we get the impression that Augusta pretending to be the widowed Mrs. Flowers is a whim, but, as the story unfolds, we discover the reason why -- and it is heartbreaking. Augusta believes that taking control of her romantic life, by seeking a lover -- on her own terms -- is going to help solve her problems. But, she never realised how difficult it was to find one -- until she bumps into Joss Everett.

Joss Everett is a complex character: he's very, very closely connected to a baronetcy, but he has always walked on the peripheries of society because of his Hindu blood and color. The curious thing about Joss is that he has accepted his role as his cousin's sidekick (in the guise of his man of business). His cousin, Lord Sutcliffe, does not respect him or value him -- and Joss has allowed this treatment to continue. We see into Joss's thoughts and we know he hates how his cousin treats him, but we also see that he believes the glass ceiling is set very low for him (and that he can't break through it) -- case in point: even his greatest dream is truly just a modest one.

"I try to wish," he said in a calm voice, "for what I know I might attain. For respectable employment for a reasonable wage. For a reasonable employer."
- loc 1895

There is a blackmail plot in the story, which involves Lord Sutcliffe and a pregnant maid, but there's surprisingly very little action and chase -- because the focus of the story is the developing relationship between Augusta and Joss. There's a lot of talking, but it is talk that one needs to pay attention to carefully, because there's so, so much revealed in their conversations. It's wonderful to see how their feelings evolve through their dialogue. At the onset, it's all careful flirtation and humour, and then it becomes deeper and more sincere, until, finally, real intimacy and honesty.

"You would do, Mr. Everett."

He froze halfway to a stand, eyes fixed on Augusta's gloved hand on his sleeve. "I would do?" Dropping into his chair again, he added, "I presume you mean as a lover?"

"Yes."

He lifted his chin, looking down his high-bridged nose at her. "Because I am convenient? Or because I am entirely unworthy of marriage?"

His tone froze her fingers, and she withdrew her hand to her lap. "Because" -- she raised her own chin -- "you bathe regularly and are not bad looking. As I mentioned previously."

"I may swoon."
- loc 202 (their first encounter in Bath)

* * *

"But if it's all right with you, I would like to stay here for a short while and be Augusta."

"Were you concerned that you might become someone else?"

"Yes. Or -- maybe concerned that I would not. I'm not sure how to tell." She lifted her head, then traced an ancient scar in the wood of the desk. "Every caller for Mrs. Flowers requires me to lie more and say less. I can't say anything that's true of my real self; I have to be so careful. And so I wind up saying nothing and smiling like a doll."
- loc1668

Loss is one of the central themes in this story (the other is finding a sense of belonging), and Romain really explores this through her supporting characters, Lady Tallant and Lord Chatfield (I'd love to read more about these two) -- Lady Tallant is in an amazingly loving relationship and has given birth to an heir and a spare, but her recent miscarriage of a daughter has proved devastating. She is in Bath trying to regain herself. Lord Chatfield is a marquess and wields incredible power in the form of the knowledge and information he possesses, but he lost his leg when he was a younger man. As I mentioned earlier, Romain's characters are perfectly imperfect, and each one exists for a reason.

Everyone had something grieve, did they not? A leg, a parent, an inconstant lover. There was always something more that could be lost.

Which meant there was always something for which to be grateful.
- loc 1542

We can see the characters go through the stages of grief, and the author is respectful of the time each one needs to deal with their own losses (the most heartbreaking is, perhaps, Lady Tallant's.) -- it is very encouraging to see each one come to terms with it at the end of the story.

Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress is a great story to conclude Theresa Romain's The Matchmaker Trilogy. Now to find time to read Season for Desire, so I can finally say that I've read all of Romain's books. ^_^

Disclosure: I received this review copy via Netgalley for this event. Thank you to Theresa Romain and to Sourcebooks Casablanca for the opportunity. Yes, this is an honest review.

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Giveaway:

To celebrate the release of Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress, Sourcebooks Casablanca is giving away five (5) copies of It Takes Two to Tangle (book 1 in the trilogy).

Rafflecoptor Link: a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: To Charm a Naughty Countess by Theresa Romain

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Many of the stories I read are told from the third-person omniscient point-of-view, but it was only when I read Theresa Romain's To Charm a Naughty Countess that I realised the value of a story told from this perspective. It has to do with the hero, Michael, Duke of Wyverne and the very quirky way his mind works. We are told that Michael suffers from social anxiety, and we are given a privileged view into his thought processes.

The idea of appearances. If we go by outward appearances, Michael is just a typical lord: arrogant, aloof, and completely misunderstood by everyone, including his own father. After his disastrous first season in London -- something that we don't think gentlemen of the Ton experience -- Michael heads home to Lancashire, to suffer criticism from his dying father, and then staying in Lancashire permanently to take on the job and responsibility of the Duke of Wyverne when his father died.

This is only part of Michael's story, and this is the other part: before he left London, he met Caroline Ward (now Caroline Graves, Countess of Stratton) and kissed her and then left her. To the Ton, Caroline is now damaged goods: once favoured by the heir to a dukedom, and then dumped as quickly. Caroline was left alone in London, salvaging her reputation and her chances for marriage.

Now the tables have turned, and it is Michael who needs to marry well -- and Caroline has the power to help him save his dukedom. I have to admire Caroline at this point, I would not have been as forgiving -- but, I guess Caroline embodies the proverb Kindness begets kindness and helps Michael. There's a giddy feeling in seeing Caroline's thoughts when she sees Michael again:

As swiftly as Wyverne shook of her touch, slanted a reluctant glance over her face, Caroline's old fascination had bloomed again. She wanted to caress away those fine lines, tease his troubles off his soul, feel his skin sliding under hers, hot and tight with desire. She wanted to shake up his sense of honour, unsettle him, enchant him.

She had always wanted that.

But she would not let him know. If he cared only for a fortune, any woman with plump pockets might do.
- Chapter 3

I love the tug between Caro's mind and heart: what she wants to do and what she must do. There's an incredible sense of self-preservation found in Caroline, and it is understandable, considering what she went through all those years ago when Michael abandoned her.

What makes Caro a most admirable heroine is her capacity for forgiveness. She could have exacted her revenge on Michael, could have ignored him and allowed him to suffer society alone -- but Caro does not let this happen. And we realise that we share this privileged view of Michael's mind with Caroline: she understands him and understands how his mind works. And this made me smile: because Michael has finally found someone who understands him in the way his father never did -- and now his challenge is to convince Caroline of this rare connection.

...Like a Carcel lamp, he was constructed in a unique and intricate way that few people could understand.

Caroline was trying, though, and she was determined to succeed. She could never understand a lamp, as Michael did, or calculate the volume of earth to be removed to make an effective canal. But she had pierced her own heart long ago, and she knew how people worked.

She understood the need cloaked by Michael's deep eyes: he craved help, though he would never ask for it. He was a man, and a duke, and he was unimaginably proud -- three reasons to keep that wall around himself.
- Chapter 8

This is a story about a courtship that pretends not to be a courtship -- of two people who try so hard to control the way their emotions move before realising and accepting the inevitability of love that has quietly lain dormant in the years of their separation -- but has now been rekindled and cannot be denied.

This was the first time she had referred openly to that night. Eleven years ago, a passion that had shaken him, unmade him. He had fled the force of it, the evidence of his own madness, and transformed himself instead into Wyverne.

...

Since coming to London, his imaginings crept into every unused corner of his thoughts, kept him awake at night. He was unsatisfied, hungry, and no food would sate him. No body, no woman, but her. The clean sculpture of her face, her lush form -- they were so lovely that he almost forgot to breathe.
- Chapter 11

This is a beautifully written and beautifully moving love story -- a purely pleasurable read, and, perhaps, Theresa Romain's best so far.

To Charm a Naughty Countess is book 2 in Theresa Romain's Matchmaker series. To find out more about Theresa Romain and her books, click below:
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Review: Season for Scandal by Theresa Romain

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We've previously met Jane Tindall in Season for Surrender, she's Xavier's cousin and a bit wild. Now Jane has reached her majority and received a major disappointment: she has been informed by her cousin that he does not trust her with the sum of money that he has been keeping in trust for her. Xavier has, instead, reverted the amount to a dowry and Jane can only access the money when she gets married.

But who would marry her? She's a poor relation, with very little social connections and is socially awkward -- so Jane does what Jane always does: she makes an outrageous plan to win herself a sum of money that would guarantee her independence.

Except, the plan goes awry and Jane is now ten thousand pounds in debt -- she's already gritting her teeth in anticipation of a lecture from Xavier, further confirming her unreliability.

She would have to tell her cousin Xavier what she had done. He would pay the debut, but he would box her up forever. She had proven him right; she could not be trusted. Like a lapdog, she would be leashed and admonished, and she would have no money and never travel away or be anyone else besides poor and plain Jane.
- Chapter 1

Edmund Ware, Baron Kirkpatrick, was not in the market for a wife. He just happened to be at the same house party as Jane was and had stepped in when the situation was getting out of hand. In order to save Jane, Edmund announces their betrothal -- and, in order to honor Jane's debt, Edmund offers to marry her in truth.

It should have been an easy arrangement: Jane and Edmund enter into an amicable marriage, pay off Jane's debt and live contently ever after. Except that Jane has always loved Edmund and makes the mistake of telling him of it -- this in itself shouldn't be a problem but, apparently, for Edmund, it is.

So this was what the truth would do. She had meant to keep her feelings a secret until she was sure of his, but she hadn't expected the revelation to kill his pleasure so completely.

She shivered with what should have been the remnants of passion, but instead felt like a bone-deep chill.

He pulled in a long, deep breath, pressing a fist against his abdomen. "I didn't know."

Then he turned back to her, drew the sheet up over her nude body, and sat back against the high wooden headboard.

"I didn't know," he repeated, eyes fixed upon the bed hanging. "I'm so sorry."

Jane had not thought anything could increase her humiliation. It had grown so large and palpable, it was almost like a third person in the room. Lying between the,, laughing at her. Oh, you foolish girl.

But she was wrong: the apology made the humiliation worse. The apology meant that he had not expected her to love him. That he didn't want her to love him. And why would that be?

Because there wasn't a prayer of him returning her feeling.
- Chapter 4

In most romance novels, love is the answer but, for Theresa Romain's Season for Scandal, love is the question because Edmund Ware doesn't believe he deserves love. Our hero is burdened by his mistakes and has spent his entire adult life atoning for such sins. He has become the perfect gentleman: attentive to the quietest wallflower, solicitous to the unpopular ladies, and gracious to the everyone else. All of London loves him for this, but Jane hates being at the receiving end of such kindness. This forced goodness, this cruel kindness, this suffocating politeness isn't what Jane needs from her husband -- what she needs from him is honesty. Jane wants to see Edmund and know Edmund beyond what he shows to the world but, while Edmund shares a little bit of himself with the world, he is unwilling to give more to the person who deserves it: his wife.

I enjoyed the irony of Edmund's life: the epitome of generosity and goodness is also the most selfish person in the world. While he is busy atoning for the mistakes of his past, making time for everybody, he is overlooking Jane and creating a newer problem. But Jane isn't a victim or a martyr, either -- at the beginning, she struck me as a bit self-serving with no sense of the consequences of her action. It irritated me that, when her plan failed, she immediately thought/assumed Xavier would save her. She's perfectly fine making rash decisions because there's always her cousin to fall back on. Jane needed to learn that she was liable for her own mistakes: and she learned it in the most spectacular way through her marriage to Edmund.

This was a wonderful story about two characters, growing, developing and discovering themselves. True connections and discovery of self are the central explorations of the story: while Edmund was content with his regular doses of adoration, they never seemed to satisfy him. All the good he was doing, all the acts of atonement were all an attempt to fill an unfillable hole -- and the only way to escape it was forgiveness. But whose? Jane's been trying to find her place in the world, a place where she can rest her own possessions, which are few. She was making strides in this direction when she was allowed to paint Edmund's hall green but, her progress was stopped cold when Edmund went back to his old ways and left his wife alone to her own devices.

Edmund counted to ten before he spoke. "Do you mean that you were trying to please me by agreeing to attend tonight? And that I have not yet found an activity that will please you?"

"Not an activity, exactly." She looked up at him, her eyes tawny as topaz. "You give a piece of yourself to everyone who sits at the edge of a ballroom. But ... Edmund ... you married me."

"True."

"So. Don't you think we ..." She trailed off. When she spoke again, her voice was carefully flat. "I thought we'd be together this evening. Not for the whole evening. Just part."

"I'm with you right now."

"Are you?"
- Chapter 7

It is also interesting how the word self- is used to prefix many other words, both with positive and negative connotations: self-assured vs. self-conscious, self-belief vs. self-doubt, etc. In that we see that the human self is a dichotomy: that we straddle a line between right and wrong. Though there is a villain in the story (Turner), the greater conflict is internal: Edmund must face the demons of his past and Jane must battle with her present emotional needs if she and Edmund would have a chance of a good future.

There is a sadness to Edmund and Jane's situation and a helplessness: because only the two of them can fix their marriage -- and it isn't something that can be fixed by a grand profession of love. Season for Scandal reflects on what makes a marriage work: love is a decision.

This was another wonderful, wonderful addition to Theresa Romain's Season series. There is one line in the whole novel that continues to haunt me and wring my heart a little bit each time I remember it:

If only she didn't love him, he could have made her so happy.
- Chapter 7

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ARC Review: It Takes Two to Tangle by Theresa Romain

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Henry Middlebrook was an aspiring painter before he became an aspiring soldier and went off to war. He has returned home a hero from the siege of Quatre Bas, but his heroism came with a cost: the loss of his right hand. Now he is neither a soldier nor a painter -- and his well-meaning family is encouraging him to return to society.

Upon the urging of his sister in-law, Henry makes the acquaintance of Caroline, Lady Stratton, a widow and one of the most sought-after catches of the season. One look at Caroline and Henry knows that he needs Caroline: he needs her confidence, connections and, most especially, her popularity. Seeing the competition for Caroline's attention, Henry employs the assistance of Caroline's companion, Frances.

Frances Whittier is also a widow and Caroline's cousin. Frances is Caroline's eyes and ears among the Ton and is used to fading into the background -- Henry's attentions comes as a surprise to Frances -- and thus begins a partnership and friendship of sorts.

"It's quite all right," she said quickly. "So we both have dreadful nicknames. Is it not odd how the people who are closest to us persist in addressing us as if we are six years old?"

"That may be the last time they saw us clearly."

Frances looked thoughtful. "You may be right. And that might not be a bad thing. I was a much better person at the age of six than I am now."
- loc 398

Then a letter is delivered to Henry, sealed with Lady Stratton's family symbol. The letter and its content encourages Henry to further his courtship of Caroline and he needs Frances's help more than ever.

What Henry doesn't know is that while the letter came from Caroline's household, it was not written by Caroline.

It Takes Two to Tangle is the first book in Theresa Romain's Matchmaker series. It is clear that Henry's sister in-law, Emily, the Countess of Tallant, who plays the matchmaker between Caroline and Henry but, to make matters more interesting, Caroline seems to be doing some matchmaking between Henry and Frances.

There are clues that would support this:
1. Caroline starts lending Frances some gowns to wear for their social outings. Prior to their introduction to Henry, Frances was wearing her more sensible clothes.
2. Caroline knew that Frances was borrowing her seal and "using" her name in the letters to Henry.

Theresa Romain draws two portraits in this novel: the soldier returned home from war and the war widow.

Soldiers are heroes, but soldiers also come home from war with wounds outside and inside -- and they are left with the challenge of picking up the pieces of the life left they left behind and building up a new life. Such is the case of Henry Middlebrook. As far as his family is concerned, he's home -- and that is the end of the story. But it is not the end for Henry, it is the beginning and a difficult one. He can't use his right hand so he can't paint or write anymore -- he cannot dine properly or hold flowers while courting. Henry cannot go back to his former life and he is finding it hard to define himself in his new form.

He ran his fingers through the loops of the Brussels carpet. Jem's carpet, in Jem's house. He was even wearing Jem's clothing today. Everything he had was Jem's, really, except for Winter Cottage. Henry could slide out of London without leaving a trace of himself behind.

But no. It was no more right for Mister Middlebrook to turn tail and run now than it would have been for Captain Middlebrook to do so in Bayonne or Brussels. Or Quatre Bras.
- loc 510

What is Caroline to Henry? A prize. A trophy -- proof that he can still charm and win women. Henry is aware of this but he cannot apologize for his actions because he believes he needs Caroline if he is to have any semblance of a social life.

This picture of Henry is off-focus -- he sees the goal but not what's beyond it. It's a Henry who doesn't know which direction to look: to the past or to the future. Enter Frances -- the companion. She's supposed to just be the sidekick, the best friend, the foil -- but it is with Frances that Henry feels a wholeness -- a sense of completeness, a sense of contentment, a chemistry -- but, poor Henry, is too intent on his original goal to realize this.

When Frances is first introduced to us, she is defined by her widowhood and that her late husband was a soldier. War widows also have their own mark of heroism: the sacrifice they made while their husbands were at war and the grief and loss that they carry with the death of their husbands -- but there is more to Frances's story than that. A story more tragic that has left Frances feeling a bit ashamed and regretful -- and these are the emotions that inform her decisions and her present life.

Frances defies being typecasted as a secondary character or even as the plain one in the "love triangle" between her, Henry and Caroline. She is intelligent and observant and sensitive to the people around her.

She was always out of step. She had grown up in wealth but married a workingman. Now she served as a companion, yet she raised her eyes to the son of an earl. She did not know for which world she was better suited. At times, both lives chafed, as though she lived in a garment cut wrongly and fitted for another's body.
- loc 1643

Theresa Romain's It Takes Two to Tangle shows us that there is always more to the story. I've been reading Theresa Romain since her debut novel and, I have to say, her star is rising. This was an incredibly insightful novel with biting wit and raw emotions.

It Take Two to Tangle will be released on September 3, 2013. To find out more about Theresa Romain and her books, click below:
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Disclosure: I received the ARC through Netgalley. (Thank you to Theresa Romain and to Sourcebooks Casablanca for accepting my request.) Yes, this is an honest review.

Review: Season for Surrender by Theresa Romain

Alexander, Lord Xavier, enjoys quite a reputation among his peers: he's known for his infallibility, for winning wagers all the time, for his coolness and for his many conquests.

It is what makes Xavier the man he is.

When a wager is made by his cousin, the Marquess of Lockwood -- one of many wagers they have made -- requiring Xavier to invite a lady with a spotless reputation to his infamous Christmas house party and have said lady stay for two weeks, Xavier did what he always does to make sure that he wins the wager but, when he gets the chance to know Louisa better, the stakes change for him -- and Xavier isn't certain he wants to win the wager with his cousin at the cost of losing Louisa.

Louisa has lived a quiet, relatively scandal-free life and now she wishes for something more. When the invitation from Lord Xavier arrives, Louisa sees it as her chance to discover everything that she's been missing in her life.

When Louisa accidentally finds out about the wager, she doesn't quite know what to do: should she leave? -- but Louisa is curious and she wants to stay and see where the wager will lead her. So she does.

The old Louisa would have shrunk from both noblemen, keeping her distance. But she no longer wanted to be the timid woman who lived such a circumscribe life.

As Sir Francis Bacon had once said, "Knowledge is power." Louisa knew about the wager, and the men didn't know she knew.

Which gave her the power, didn't it? This would be enjoyable.
- pp. 33-34

The man or the mask?

Having been orphaned at a very young age, Xavier has always been his title and nothing more. The reputation he has gained is quite accidental but Xavier likes it and prefers to let things stay the way they are --

By maintaining the status quo, Xavier has no choice but the agree to every wager and try to win it -- by some sort of miracle, he always does -- and he never corrects the rumors about him and his paramours and conquests (zero, by the way) --

And now his cousin has conveniently trapped him into another wager -- one that didn't sit well with Xavier even from the beginning but, what can he do but say "yes"?

Louisa isn't at all what Xavier expected her to be. And he likes it. And he likes her. He's used to figuring out people and has numbered expressions to react to every possible occasion -- but his encounters with Louisa leave him ... speechless and he can't even think which of his numbered expressions to use with her.

For the first time in Xavier's life, he is challenged to be a better person -- and he wants to become a better person.

But how does one make such a change? Xavier doesn't know the answer but he's willing to find out what it is -- if it means keeping Louisa in his life.

This was a very sweet, very insightful story -- I loved Louisa as a heroine. She is perceptive and so incredibly observant. And I loved how she wasn't afraid to try out something new -- she was able to process her situation and see a way that she could learn something from it -- and she did! She gained quite a bit of knowledge from her stay at Xavier's house.

Louisa is definitely a bluestocking and she feels that society thinks she's invisible and, after being jilted by her fiance, she knows she's well on the shelf -- but what is wonderful about her is that she doesn't let these labels define her or rule her life. She knows who she is and she knows what she wants.

She's quite the opposite of Xavier -- and she's the perfect person to teach him how to live beyond the words and reputation that define his life.

I enjoyed the conversations between Xavier and Louisa. They are flirtatious and playful -- but there's also a depth to it, an almost philosophical bent to it -- leading to the question: what makes a man a man -- and how does one unmake him?

Louisa understood in an instant: in the low light, with the haziness of his close vision, he wasn't able to cut accurately. "If you'll help raise me up, I could cut the mistletoe."

Alex passed the knife from one hand to the other. "Impossible."

"Impossible because you think yourself insufficiently strong, or because you think me excessively heavy?"

His nostrils flared, but he didn't smile. "Unwise, then."

"Because you think yourself insufficiently careful, or because you think my excessively clumsy?"

"My dear muffin, you will please cease your retorts."
- p. 116

It was gratifying to see Xavier's journey of self-discovery -- and I loved that it was Louisa was the one who guided him through it.

This is a very different kind of Christmas story -- it doesn't have any of the usual Christmas mainstays, but there is a heartwarming element to the story and there is a transformation that happens -- and it is a wonderful one.

Season for Surrender is the second book in Theresa Romain's The Seasons Quartet. The third book, Season for Indiscretion will be released in 2013.

To find out more about Theresa Romain and her books, visit her website. She's also on Facebook.

Season for Temptation by Theresa Romain

This is Romain's debut novel -- I tried to like it but felt that it lacked something to make it more interesting.

The author begins each chapter with a clever title -- I felt this limited each chapter -- when the author had fulfilled what was indicated in the title, the chapter end. It made her work episodic -- there was very little character development and, overall, her characters lacked depth.

Romain has a gift for humor and she shows this with her chapter titles, as well as with her heroine, Julia.

Julia is a breath of fresh air for James. She speaks her mind and eats heartily. My problem with her was that she talked too much.

The main conflict in the story is internal, IMHO -- James is engaged to Julia's sister, Louisa but he loves Julia instead.

The problem was, Louisa is a very likable character. She loved books and loved her sister. She was clever and honest. In some instances, the two sisters were very alike so I found it difficult to accept that James would prefer one over the other. (The only difference was that one loved him and the other did not.)

I felt this story was too flat -- but I see Romain's potential.

I will definitely try out her second book.