Sakura of DOOM

These are books 3 and 4 of Hoyt's Legend of the Four Soldiers quartet, which is about four survivors of a British regiment ambushed by Indians in the not-yet-United-States. (I will get to this rant in a moment.)

To Beguile a Beast - Mrs. Helen Fitzwilliam has finally decided to leave her keeper, the Duke of Lister, but she knows he'll go after her just to get her and his two bastard children back. She ends up trying to persuade naturalist Sir Alistair Munroe to let her stay as his housekeeper, since he desperately needs one. Alistair is the titular beast, as he was scarred and had two fingers cut off during aforementioned ambush. Thankfully, this book has relatively little about the ambush, which meant I could pretend to ignore it so as to not throw the book against a wall. Most of the plot revolves around Helen escaping the Duke of Lister, and amazingly, her two children are not nauseatingly cute. In fact, I actually really liked the very solemn and not at all cute Abigail. I like that the hero is actually scarred, as opposed to the usual "Oh WOES I am UGLY wait no it's only a mild scratch" thing, but I was rather unconvinced by how long the "I am not worthy of your love" thing was dragged out on Alistair's part. Overall, not bad, though I like her Princes trilogy better.

To Desire a Devil - ( Spoilers and rantiness )

I found Elizabeth Hoyt via recs from Dear Author and oracne. So far, I've read four and a half of her books (I'm stuck on To Taste Temptation). Hoyt writes Georgians, which is a nice change from the perpetual Regencies. So far, her characterization is much better than usual, she occasionally has non-alpha men, the sex is less vanilla than usual (low bar, but still), and quite a few of her characters are explicitly described as ordinary, not pretty, or not handsome.

The Princes trilogy is about three men who know each other via an agricultural society; the stories are stylistically connected by the retelling of three "prince" fairy tales within the books. One of the pluses of the trilogy is that the stories are only slightly interconnected; there are no match-making characters, secondary character sex, or cute babies.

The Raven Prince - Anna Wren is having a difficult time keeping her very small household afloat when she's nearly run over by Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham. Edward, on the other hand, keeps scaring away his secretaries. When Anna volunteers, it seems as though both of their problems are solved.

This is Hoyt's first book and the weakest of the trilogy. I dislike the trope it relies on midway through (sex in disguise), and the employer-employee relationship almost always squicks me out, particularly when it's male employer and female employee. I don't remember much of it, save that Edward is very paranoid about his face and upper body, both of which are scarred from a childhood encounter with smallpox. I liked that the scarring, while related to his childhood traumatic incident and to his current insecurity, isn't the result of some heroic injury, that it is described as off-putting, and that it's not one of those stupid tropes in which the hero angsts about his ugliness for chapters and chapters, only to have the readers discover that he only has two dashing scars on his cheekbone or something.

There is a subplot regarding courtesans that I wasn't much for, as some of it skirted around the Courtesan with the Heart of Gold trope, as well as a subplot involving Anna being blackmailed. Also, the fairy tale isn't integrated in the story as it is in the later two books, although I briefly smiled at it because it reminded me of Princess Tutu.

Still, the character interaction was interesting, although it was a bit of a disappointment after the other two books (I read the trilogy backwards).

The Leopard Prince - Lady Georgina Maitland is checking out one of her estates when a series of sheep murders breaks out. Unfortunately, the suspect is her trusty steward Harry Pye! Even more unfortunately, she has begun to notice that Harry has very nice wide shoulders and a very muscular build...

This was a very fun book, although I think it might have been improved with less Harry angst in the end, as that didn't work with the frothier tone in the beginning for me. Hoyt manages to skirt around my employer-employee squick with the lighter tone here, as well as by making the woman the employer and the man the employee. Harry's pretty alpha, so there was less imbalance in the power dynamics of the relationship. (Which is not to say that this works in real life, because NO. But enough to get me to read.) Also, I think Janssen's The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom, and Their Lover does a more interesting version of the class differences between the hero and the heroine.

I enjoyed George, who's very fashionable, somewhat harebrained, but actually extremely smart underneath the ruffles, and I was very fond of her and Harry as a couple. There are some missteps when it comes to George's many brothers and her sister; I thought the subplot about her sister again didn't work with the fluffier tone for me, and I completely didn't believe the resolution of the George-Harry romance.

Most of my quibbles are that it felt like Hoyt was still figuring out tone and how to balance a comic tone with slightly more serious matters. That said, I had a lot of fun reading this.

The Serpent Prince - Lucy Craddock-Hayes lives a fairly staid life—she's slowly being courted by the local vicar and is a Pillar of the Community. That is, until she finds Viscount Simon Iddesleigh naked in a ditch, beaten nearly to death. Unbeknownst to Lucy, Simon is intent upon finding the men who conspired to kill his brother and killing them via duel. What follows is a very traditional-feeling love story with very little flash but a lot of emotion.

This book doesn't do much with gender roles, save that Simon is not an alpha bastard. He's of the "secretly angsty but hides his angst under foppishness and drivel" category that I have great fondness for (see: Scarlet Pimpernel). Lucy herself is very honest and very straightforward, but not in a flirtatious or spunky manner. She reads as very solemn and serious instead. My favorite part of the book is the romance between Lucy and Simon: they fall in love fairly quickly but they both realize it's not likely for the romance to succeed. In spite of that, Simon proposes. The bulk of the novel is not about their sexual chemistry, but rather about how they will make the relationship work when Simon is intent upon destroying himself.

I mentioned the romance felt "traditional" to me; a large part of it is because the focus is on the emotions of the hero and the heroine and not about the sex. There's also the fact that they first have sex after being married, that the first time isn't perfect, and even that there is a divide between the more knowledgeable guy wanting sex with the less knowledgeable woman not being so sure. It sounds odd that I'd appreciate this, but I do. I like how Lucy learns about sex, as opposed to instantly thinking it's awesome, and while I raise my eyebrow at Simon at times, I like that he is actually very protective of Lucy, and not in a snarly animalistic way.

Despite the massive amounts of angst, this read as very sweet to me. It's about two people who very much love each other, even as they're still learning about the other person. And while I could critique the female-savior/male-sinner dynamic, I think Hoyt makes it work extremely well by virtue of her characterization.

---

Hoyt is also offering a free online novella, The Ice Princess, which is the story of the courtesan with the heart of gold in The Raven Prince. Given the title, the fairy tale it references, and the way the story has been going so far (hero not using sex to seduce a courtesan!), I like it a lot. Here's hoping it ends well. Warning: the first chapter is in an incredibly annoying format.