It's an all-free list this week, because there are so many interesting titles available on Amazon.
There are Jennifer Blake titles that are currently free:
Enjoy~
Sunday, September 14, 2014
Free Historical Romance Novels
Happy weekend, fellow readers!
It's an all-free list this week, because there are so many interesting titles available on Amazon.
There are Jennifer Blake titles that are currently free:
Enjoy~
It's an all-free list this week, because there are so many interesting titles available on Amazon.
There are Jennifer Blake titles that are currently free:
Enjoy~
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Throwback Thursday: Historical Romance Edition #52
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| Thank you to Shabby Blogs (http://shabbyblogs.com/) for the free frame! |
Happy Thursday, everyone! And welcome to a new feature on Buried Under Romance and Love Saves the World.
What is Throwback Thursday?
Traditionally, Throwback Thursday celebrates nostalgia, asking participants to post a personal photo or an image from their past -- usually from 5 to 10 years ago. There are a lot of book blogs that also do a book-related Throwback Thursday.
The Historical Romance Edition:
Since Mary of Buried Under Romance and I are unapologetic lovers of historical romances, we've decided to focus on our beloved genre.
Here are our rules:
1. It must be posted on a Thursday.
2. It must be a historical romance novel published before October 3, 2008.
Perils of the Heart by Jennifer Ashley, published November 2002
Blurb:
Sent to seduce the captain of the merchantman Aurora, the English governess trembled in her innocence. Her stepbrother’s life -- and the life of the rugged sailor she must tempt -- depended on her success. Evangeline swore to surrender her body, her virtue ... anything Austin Blackwell demanded. But she never expected to relinquish her heart. On a mission for the American colonies, Austin suspected the timid temptress was a skilled spy ordered to sabotage his plans. She played the part of an untried miss to perfection, her inexperienced fumbling driving him wild with desire. But after sampling her sweetness, after one harrowing night fraught with passion and peril, the commander vowed to navigate any course to discover the truth. For his soul mutinied at the prospect of sailing into the future without the courageous lady by his side.
I recently discovered Jennifer Ashley books, though I've heard of and seen her books before, so I'm making up for lost time. ^_^ I fell in love with Ian in The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie and am currently going through her Highland Pleasures (Mackenzie/Macbride) series. Perils of the Heart was her debut novel in 2002.
To find out more about Jennifer Ashley and her books, click below:
Website
Facebook
Goodreads
Twitter
Head over to Mary @ Buried Under Romance and Ki Pha of Doing Some Reading for their picks for Throwback Thursday.^_^
Fellow historical romance readers are welcome to join us. Enter your link below so we can visit your TBT: HR Edition post for the week! (Then go here to copy the Link code to your blogs.)
To find out more about Jennifer Ashley and her books, click below:
Goodreads
Head over to Mary @ Buried Under Romance and Ki Pha of Doing Some Reading for their picks for Throwback Thursday.^_^
Fellow historical romance readers are welcome to join us. Enter your link below so we can visit your TBT: HR Edition post for the week! (Then go here to copy the Link code to your blogs.)
Review: Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage by Jennifer Ashley
Click here to buy the book on Amazon
Click here to buy the paperback at The Book Depository
To call their courtship and marriage a whirlwind romance is an understatement, because Isabella met and married Mac on her first night as a debutante. It caused quite a scandal, but nothing like the scandal they caused in their married life. Mac Mackenzie is an artist and embraces the very bohemian life of an artist, and Isabella, fresh out of finishing school, was an eager participant in the hedonistic offerings of Mac's life. But love grows, and the people ought to grow alongside it, but Mac stays firmly fixed in time and space: drinking his family's whiskey and painting up a frenzy. It takes a terrible tragedy for them to realise that the love they feel and their expectation of each other are world's apart, and Isabella makes the painful decision to leave Mac behind.
Mac had never understood Isabella's liking for so many damned people in the house, but he had to admit that he'd never really tried to understand her likes and dislikes. He'd simply drunk her in like fine wine, not questioning, letting her fill and inspire him. He never thought to ask how the wine felt.
- Chapter 5
If Ian's story was about discovering and creating a new relationship, Isabella's story is about revisiting and repairing an old one. If the little tidbits shared at the beginning of each chapter is to be believed, in their three-year separation, Mac and Isabella still managed to live close to each other: when he moved to the continent, so did she. When she returned to England, so did he. They can't live together, but they can't live apart --
Two images came to mind as I read about Isabella and Mac dancing around each other: magnetic poles flipped on the same side and, therefore, repel each other. And the other are the columns that Kahlil Gibran describes in The Prophet:
...
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
...
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
- The Prophet excerpt copied from here
In a sense, Isabella and Mac's story serves as a cautionary tale for anyone who dares to fall in love with a Mackenzie: they love with such intensity and brightness, but it is a love that threatens to consume. It is a test of mettle and metal: will you crumble under the intensity or be shaped and strengthened by it? If you look at Mac and Isabella, they seem like a truly unlikely pairing: Mac is wild and free spirited and Isabella is the product of very strict and rigid upbringing, but something drew them to one another and that something continues to draw them to one another.
Memories flooded back to Mac as he gathered her against him. Don't remember. Don't let it hurt. But memories were merciless things.
- Chapter 14
What amazed me about Isabella is that she is so young -- 18 when she married, and 21 now as she tries to figure out how to rebuild her relationship with Mac. She has overcome the heartbreak of their loss, but it was an event that drove Isabella nearly on the brink of giving up. It was her love for Mac prevented her from walking away completely.
Love is not enough, but love is the answer. It's a strange truism that applies to our hero and heroine. I loved their defiance of society's norms: separated/estranged couples aren't supposed to stay in love with each other; they aren't supposed to stay faithful to each other ... It's unconventional, and out of the ordinary, but then, what do you expect of Mackenzies?
Like Ian and Beth's story, Ashley frames Isabella and Mac's story with a mystery: someone is pretending to be Mac and selling artwork in Mac's name. It takes a sinister turn when the person surfaces and tries to claim Mac's life ... and Mac's wife.
***Minor Spoiler Alert***
***Minor Spoiler Alert***
***Minor Spoiler Alert***
***Minor Spoiler Alert***
***Minor Spoiler Alert***
Now, this part of the story felt a bit stretched: a man exists who looks similar to Mac, and possesses a similar talent to Mac -- and this doppelgänger is English (like Mac), but they aren't related? The odds are so, so unlikely -- but I was willing to suspend disbelief because I understand that the author was trying to present parallels. Mac's life and upbringing wasn't all that idyllic and he suffered his father's abuses, but, for another man, Mac's life is the dream to aspire for.
***End of Spoiler***
***End of Spoiler***
***End of Spoiler***
***End of Spoiler***
***End of Spoiler***
As the mystery unfolds, Mac and Isabella muddle through their relationship: they're together, but Isabella hasn't reversed their separation yet; they love and make love, but, somehow feel that isn't enough to sustain a marriage ... ultimately, Jennifer Ashley ends her story the way marriages begin: with a question and an answer. We see love as an abstract, but, as we have seen, thus far, in Ian's story and Isabella and Mac's story, love is an action and it begins with the decision to take the first step.
Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage is book 2 in Jennifer Ashley's Highland Pleasures (The Mackenzies/McBrides) series. To find out more about Jennifer Ashley and her books, click below:
Goodreads
Monday, September 8, 2014
Review: The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie by Jennifer Ashley
Click here to buy the book on Amazon
Click here to buy the paperback at The Book Depository
You know you're reading a good book when you fall asleep reading it, and wake up wanting to pick up where you left off. And, in between, you skip the chance to take a nap, because you just want to keep reading it.
And, at the end of it, there's a sense of happiness, satisfaction and pleasure in having read a really good book, but I also felt a tiny bit of regret at not having read this book sooner (so that I could've loved it longer. ^_^) Nevertheless, I am so, so pleased to have discovered another family to love, and, while I'm working on this review, I've already finished reading the second book in the series, Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage and about to start on The Many Sins of Lord Cameron.
I'm a bit stuck writing this review, because I really, really admired Ian and want to do his character justice. He is incredibly intelligent and very good with facts -- and he recognises that he can't read emotions very well. The world thinks he's mad, but I saw him as the most balanced, most self-aware character I have met so far. He knows his limitations, but he also knows not to be hindered by those limitations.
Ian's upbringing was already complicated by a rage-filled father and a delicate mother, and it was further complicated by his "madness" and subsequent stay at the asylum -- but the amazing thing about Ian is that he still retains an incredible amount of faith in humanity, despite what has been done to him. Ian can't be kind or compassionate because his "madness" prevents him from understanding emotions, but his mind can rationalise the need to repay the courtesy extended to him. In that I became fascinated with how there are logical counterparts to emotional concepts: kindness = service; compassion = goodwill, etc ... I think it's this exchange that allows Ian to deal with his brothers, but, there is one emotion that Ian hasn't quite grasped yet -- love. The closest logical approximation to it is "attachment", but it really isn't the same and Ian knows this and is very curious.
This is what I loved about his story, as Ian delves into the concept of love, we all realise (the characters in the story as well) how much/little we know about love and how difficult it is to explain what love is -- and it challenges all of us to deconstruct this abstract concept and make it tangible, and explainable to Ian (and to ourselves).
"I told you I can't fall in love," he said. "But you have."
Her heart thumped. "Have I?"
"With your husband."
So many people wanted to talk about Thomas Ackerley. "I did. I loved him very much."
"What was it like?" His words were so low she barely caught them. "Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand."
He waited, his golden eyes burning, for her to explain the mysteries of the world. "It is the most divine thing imaginable," she tried.
"I don't want to hear about divinity. I want to hear about flesh and bone. Is love like desire?"
"Some people think so."
"But you don't."
Sweat trickled down Beth's back, despite the clouds cutting the sun's heat. The trouble with Ian Mackenzie's questions was that he asked the unanswerable. And yet she should know how to answer -- everyone should. But they couldn't, because everyone simply knew. Everyone except Ian.
- Chapter 9 - Chapter 10
It falls unto Beth to show Ian what love is. When we think complementary, the idea of yin-yang immediately comes to mind -- not in terms of strong/weak, but in other ways. Beth is heart where Ian is the mind. She is the lightness to his gravity ... and vice versa. In that, they fit -- truly, like yin and yang.
Jennifer Ashley strikes a wonderful balance between the courtship and the mystery of Ian's past, the presence of Inspector Lloyd Fellows (and the case of the murdered prostitutes). The author poses such formidable questions and challenges for our hero and heroine to overcome -- casting doubts on Ian's sanity and innocence. It's truly a test of discernment (logical) and faith (emotional) for Beth (and us): Given the facts, what does she believe? Given what she sees of Ian, what does she believe?
As first books (of a series) go, this one also did a fantastic job of introducing the rest of the Mackenzies. She paints a compelling picture of a family so full of tragedy, imperfection and emotional hang-ups, but also so full of story and heart. As I mentioned in the first paragraph, I've already finished reading Lady Isabella and Lord Mac's story and will be reading Cam's story after this. They're irresistible!
Mac sighed, cutting through the memory. "We're Mackenzies. We don't get happy endings."
- Chapter 9
The Madness of Lord Ian Mackenzie is book 1 in Jennifer Ashley's Highland Pleasures (The Mackenzies/McBrides) series. To find out more about Jennifer Ashley and her books, click below:
Goodreads
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Free and Discounted Historical Romance Novels
Happy Weekend, Fellow Readers!
There were a lot of really great new releases this past week. Highlights for me were:
The Laird by Grace Burrowes
The Governess Club: Sara by Ellie MacDonald
A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner (re-issue)
Apple's iBookstore is also featuring romance novels and offering them at $1.99 each. (I think Amazon has price-matched these titles.)
Click here to see the selection.
And here are this week's featured Free and Discounted Historical Romance Novels:
...so I finally started reading Jennifer Ashley's Highland Pleasures/MacKenzie Family series and devoured The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie in a day (well, a night and the next morning) and then went on to read (and finish reading) Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, and will soon be reading The Many Sins of Lord Cameron (as soon as I finish with this post). Jennifer Ashley also writes mysteries as Ashley Gardner and this is book 1 in her Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.
This is book 1 in Karolyn Cairns's The Wicked series and, according to Amazon, is 606 pages long. (Can anyone confirm this?)
This is the first book in Lola Grace Stevens's Family of Fire series and her debut novel.
This amazing boxed set of 10 stories (a mix of novellas and full-length novels) is only available until September 21. It's a really, really great bargain for $0.99 --
This is book 1 in Ceci Giltenan's Duncurra series. Read my review of this book here, and my interview with Ceci here.
I LOVED this book, and it's at a really, really good price right now. This is book 1 of Tessa Dare's Castles Ever After series.
This is the start of Sophie Barnes's At The Kingsborough Ball series.
I know this doesn't really look like a bargain, but, it's a great way to catch up to Mary Jo Putney's Lost Lords series. (Book 6: Not Quite a Wife came out recently) At $17.39, it's less than $3.50 per book. ^_^
Enjoy~
There were a lot of really great new releases this past week. Highlights for me were:
The Laird by Grace Burrowes
The Governess Club: Sara by Ellie MacDonald
A Lily Among Thorns by Rose Lerner (re-issue)
Apple's iBookstore is also featuring romance novels and offering them at $1.99 each. (I think Amazon has price-matched these titles.)
Click here to see the selection.
And here are this week's featured Free and Discounted Historical Romance Novels:
...so I finally started reading Jennifer Ashley's Highland Pleasures/MacKenzie Family series and devoured The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie in a day (well, a night and the next morning) and then went on to read (and finish reading) Lady Isabella's Scandalous Marriage, and will soon be reading The Many Sins of Lord Cameron (as soon as I finish with this post). Jennifer Ashley also writes mysteries as Ashley Gardner and this is book 1 in her Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries series.
This is book 1 in Karolyn Cairns's The Wicked series and, according to Amazon, is 606 pages long. (Can anyone confirm this?)
This is the first book in Lola Grace Stevens's Family of Fire series and her debut novel.
This amazing boxed set of 10 stories (a mix of novellas and full-length novels) is only available until September 21. It's a really, really great bargain for $0.99 --
This is book 1 in Ceci Giltenan's Duncurra series. Read my review of this book here, and my interview with Ceci here.
I LOVED this book, and it's at a really, really good price right now. This is book 1 of Tessa Dare's Castles Ever After series.
This is the start of Sophie Barnes's At The Kingsborough Ball series.
I know this doesn't really look like a bargain, but, it's a great way to catch up to Mary Jo Putney's Lost Lords series. (Book 6: Not Quite a Wife came out recently) At $17.39, it's less than $3.50 per book. ^_^
Enjoy~
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