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Hunter, Madeline - The Seducer, The Romantic, and Lady of Sin
Tue, Mar. 9th, 2010 11:36 pmMy romance-reading spree seems to be over, although sadly, nothing has stepped in to take its place. I hope the non-reading brain does not last for long, as I find myself at a loss as to what to do and end up playing endless rounds of Spider Solitaire. Books! Horribly bad for my schoolwork, but at least still more satisfying than digital cards!
Anyway, if only the non-reading brain came with blogging-the-giant-backlog brain as well! Instead, I will make even more entries with inadequate notes...
The Seducer - The first of Hunter's Seducer series about a group of men who practice fencing together. Diane Albret has grown up in a French boarding school, while her guardian, Daniel St. John, has visited dutifully every year without ever taking much note of her. Now she's grown, and he does notice. He takes her to London and presents her to society for some convoluted revenge scheme. I actually don't have guardian/ward romance squicks emotionally, although intellectually, the power dynamic can bug me (I chalk this up to several guardian/ward romances or teen romances I read as a kid). This doesn't ping my squicks, as Daniel hasn't been very present in Diane's life at all to date. However, there is a power differential between them, and Diane is very aware of it. This hit a lot of my emotionally dysfunctional romance buttons, though that may just have been when I read it. Hunter's prose hasn't impressed me much since, so I reserve judgment for a reread.
The Romantic - The fifth of the Seducer series. Julian Hampton has been in love with Penelope Laclere his entire life, despite the class barrier. He's the lawyer to the Laclere family, which features largely in this series, and she is unhappily married to the Count of Glasbury. When she comes to him for help, he vows to do all he can for her. I expected to like this a great deal—unrequited childhood love, non-alpha male, upper-class woman/lower-class man class differential—but the book fell short of expectation. Penelope has very little personality beyond damsel in distress, and although we are informed of the depth of Julian's love for her time and again, I never thought it fully came through on the page. Part of this was because Penelope had so little character that I couldn't imagine her inspiring love of that depth, but part was also Hunter's desire to make Julian completely stoic. Alas, that only works if you get hints of inner turmoil every so often, and sadly, reams of unsent love letters didn't cut it for me, especially since they were so poorly written. Also, more BDSM as a stand-in for villainy, as well as some race issues. (spoilers) I very much liked that the villain's illegitimate daughter with a slave got to kill him but am nevertheless disturbed by how the pain of the slaves is there mostly to illustrate how mean the villain was so we felt sympathetic toward Penelope, and how the daughter was there only to provide a deus ex machina for Julian.
Lady of Sin - Second of a duo that is related to the Seducer series. Charlotte, nee Laclere, the widowed Baroness Mardenford, ends up sleeping with notorious lawyer Nathaniel Knightride (he was in The Romantic) during a masked orgy. Together, theyfight crime! attempt to amend the laws about divorce! Well, she does, and she mostly manages to drag him into it. Either I read this when I was not in romance mood, or Madeline Hunter's charms had worn thin by book 3, because all I remember is being very bored by this. Charlotte and Nathaniel are supposed to be the opposites attract, sparks fly type of couple, but the dialogue was nowhere near zingy enough, and I still have problems with the premise of the plot. Meh.
The other Hunter books I started I didn't like enough to finish (The Rules of Seduction, By Arrangement, and The Sins of Lord Easterbrook). The last I had to stop reading even though I was eating noodles by myself and had no other books in my purse! It was suffer through free minutes with no books or risk throwing the thing at a wall in public thanks to a plot depending on the British trading in China in the 1800s.
Anyway, if only the non-reading brain came with blogging-the-giant-backlog brain as well! Instead, I will make even more entries with inadequate notes...
The Seducer - The first of Hunter's Seducer series about a group of men who practice fencing together. Diane Albret has grown up in a French boarding school, while her guardian, Daniel St. John, has visited dutifully every year without ever taking much note of her. Now she's grown, and he does notice. He takes her to London and presents her to society for some convoluted revenge scheme. I actually don't have guardian/ward romance squicks emotionally, although intellectually, the power dynamic can bug me (I chalk this up to several guardian/ward romances or teen romances I read as a kid). This doesn't ping my squicks, as Daniel hasn't been very present in Diane's life at all to date. However, there is a power differential between them, and Diane is very aware of it. This hit a lot of my emotionally dysfunctional romance buttons, though that may just have been when I read it. Hunter's prose hasn't impressed me much since, so I reserve judgment for a reread.
The Romantic - The fifth of the Seducer series. Julian Hampton has been in love with Penelope Laclere his entire life, despite the class barrier. He's the lawyer to the Laclere family, which features largely in this series, and she is unhappily married to the Count of Glasbury. When she comes to him for help, he vows to do all he can for her. I expected to like this a great deal—unrequited childhood love, non-alpha male, upper-class woman/lower-class man class differential—but the book fell short of expectation. Penelope has very little personality beyond damsel in distress, and although we are informed of the depth of Julian's love for her time and again, I never thought it fully came through on the page. Part of this was because Penelope had so little character that I couldn't imagine her inspiring love of that depth, but part was also Hunter's desire to make Julian completely stoic. Alas, that only works if you get hints of inner turmoil every so often, and sadly, reams of unsent love letters didn't cut it for me, especially since they were so poorly written. Also, more BDSM as a stand-in for villainy, as well as some race issues. (spoilers) I very much liked that the villain's illegitimate daughter with a slave got to kill him but am nevertheless disturbed by how the pain of the slaves is there mostly to illustrate how mean the villain was so we felt sympathetic toward Penelope, and how the daughter was there only to provide a deus ex machina for Julian.
Lady of Sin - Second of a duo that is related to the Seducer series. Charlotte, nee Laclere, the widowed Baroness Mardenford, ends up sleeping with notorious lawyer Nathaniel Knightride (he was in The Romantic) during a masked orgy. Together, they
The other Hunter books I started I didn't like enough to finish (The Rules of Seduction, By Arrangement, and The Sins of Lord Easterbrook). The last I had to stop reading even though I was eating noodles by myself and had no other books in my purse! It was suffer through free minutes with no books or risk throwing the thing at a wall in public thanks to a plot depending on the British trading in China in the 1800s.
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