Miss Bates is not a fan of sheikhs, or secret babies (babies yes, but not the secret ones). She loved Graham’s The Billionaire’s Bridal Bargain, the first rom in the series, and wanted to read the second to learn about the heroine’s sister, Chrissie. Lizzie Whitaker, of Bridal Bargain, noticed her university student sister looking sad and stressed in a way she knows is not related to her studies. The reason why is evident in The Sheikh’s Secret Babies; she married Prince Jaul, future king of the Middle Eastern kingdom of Marwan, in haste and repented at leisure, strapped for cash and pregnant. The novel opens four years later with Jaul contemplating marriage to Zaliha, a woman he doesn’t love who will be good for his reign and people. Cue ta-da music … Bandar, his legal advisor, informs him he’s still married to Chrissie. Jaul pegged Chrissie as a “mercenary, hard-hearted” “gold-digger,” after she accepted his father’s five-million-pound bribe to desert him. Little did he know Chrissie was destitute and pregnant in London (after he left for Marwan without her) until Lizzie and Cesare came to her and soon-to-be-born twins rescue. Though Chrissie doesn’t deserve it, Jaul thinks the decent thing to do is go to London, inform Lizzie about their still-married state, and ask for a divorce. Continue reading
Tag: Desert-Setting
MINI-REVIEW: Maisey Yates’ SHEIKH’S DESERT DUTY
In E. M. Hull’s horrific Sheikh, Ahmed kidnaps, rapes, and imprisons Lady Diana to avenge his mother’s abuse at his English father’s hands. Thank you, Wikipedia, Miss Bates didn’t have to read it to learn this. Maisey’s Yates’ Sheikh’s Desert Duty winks at Hull’s premise. Though the resemblance ends there, it is still a clever nod to one of the most controversial of the romance’s genre’s predecessors.
Yates’ Sheikh’s Desert Duty, part of the elaborate, convoluted and to Miss B uninteresting Chatsfield series, opens with Sheikh Zayn Al-Ahmar of the desert kingdom of Surhaadi and James Chatsfield. James is the nasty who has dishonoured Zayn’s sister, Leila, by abandoning her pregnant. When Zayn calls James out for his actions, James responds, ” ‘You’re positively biblical, Al-Ahmar.’ ” Zayn is all about the old-fashioned virtue of protecting his family and country. When Zayn leaves London’s Chatsfield Hotel, he discovers Sophie Parsons lurking among the garbage cans. Sophie, in turn, is there to help out a friend, Isabelle Harrington, whose family hotel business is threatened by Spenser Chatsfield. As a reporter, Sophie hopes to find some delicious Chatsfield scoop to use in aid of her loyal, loving friend. What she finds instead is a tall, dark, handsome stranger, who assumes she’s going to snoop around long enough to expose his sister’s dilemma. To protect his sister’s and country’s reputations, Zayn kidnaps Sophie. Sounds awful? In premise, yes, but Yates is a clever and tongue-in-cheek writer when she’s at her best. Evidence: James’ cool, sly “biblical” retort to Zayn’s sombre, serious need to protect his family. Zayn: the desert patriarch, the tribal leader under whose wings everyone is succoured. Continue reading
When Only Short and Sweet Will Do: Liz Fielding’s THE SHEIKH’S GUARDED HEART
Truth be told, as far as romance reading goes, Miss Bates is a category aficionado. Now that she’s somewhat extricated herself (and she was the sole person responsible for putting herself there) of the ARC-shackles, and given that the day job will make relentless demands on her until Christmas, you can expect A LOT of category reading and ruminating. Liz Fielding is an auto-buy and go-to author for Miss Bates. Why? Because the writing is laudable; characters; finely drawn; and, there’s humour and gravitas to the story. For example, Miss Bates loved the 2004 A Family of His Own, with its broody hero, grubby gardener-heroine, and gardening metaphors out of Wilde’s “Selfish Giant.” Fielding’s The Sheikh’s Guarded Heart has similar elements: an oasis-garden setting, a loving heroine, a cute moppet, a brooding, suffering hero and elegant writing. And the idea that the love of a good woman can water the soul of a brooding hero. Was it a thoroughly enjoyable reading experience for Miss Bates? Continue reading
REVIEW: Deanna Raybourn’s CITY OF JASMINE, Is Where “I Missed You”
Miss Bates knew Deanna Raybourn in her incarnation as the creator of the Lady Julia Grey mystery series, one Miss Bates read and enjoyed. But mystery novels, in comparison to romance novels, always make Miss B. antsy. Truth be told, she was more fascinated by the Lady Julia/Nicholas Brisbane courtship and coupling than she ever was by the whodunits. She can’t ever recall the dominant mystery thread that is the core of any of the Lady Julia novels. What she does remember, with reader pleasure/pain, are the antagonistic, oblique attraction and temperaments of the leads, the curiosity to know more and more of their intimate encounters and emotional vulnerabilities. Raybourn is so so good at withholding from the reader. This attracted and repelled Miss Bates, had her anticipate and yet avoid the latest release. In her latest novel, City Of Jasmine, it appears that Raybourn loosened those maddening elements and allowed her hero and heroine to eke out a little more of themselves and their relationship to the reader. In this sense, and coupled with Raybourn’s lovely writing and the strong, amiable voice of her heroine-narrator, City Of Jasmine was a better, more satisfying read for Miss Bates. It was also a tighter narrative than the Julia Grey mysteries: it didn’t get as bogged down in details and developped mystery elements with greater and more engaging alacrity. She would venture to suggest that if you like your mysteries with their cross-hairs on the relationship rather than the body, you’re going to relish this latest from Raybourn. It captured Miss Bates … though she still experienced some frustration with it.
Looks Like A Review: Sarah Morgan’s THE SULTAN’S VIRGIN BRIDE, Or Lysistrata In the Desert
When “the world is too much” with Miss Bates, when she’s “in disgrace with fortune” and has had the work month from hell, when Friday rolls around and fatigue comes cheap … she reads an HP. HPs are Miss Bates’s preferred escapist reading: the caricatured masculinity of the uber-hero, the moral goodness and myriad virtues of the often-misunderstood heroine (even heiress-party-girls are good and secretly self-sacrificing). Setting is set at minimum and the over-wrought physicality of the hero and heroine’s attraction is strung so tight Miss Bates hears zinging as she reads.
Thus was Sarah Morgan’s The Sultan’s Virgin Bride. Smooth, coconut-flavored chocolate, an espresso as dark as our hero’s eyes and Morgan’s PC-not tale and Miss Bates rejuvenated on a weary Friday night.
When Saturday’s grey-fogged incipient dawn crept into her room, however, she woke with thoughts whirling. She’d enjoyed every moment of her HP; however, niggling and annoying considerations sidled into her consciousness. She’s going to impose them on you, dear reader. Bear with her. This be reader response.
To the HP reader, there are no spoilers. One of the HP’s virtues is its predictability. But if you don’t read them and you’re reading this, there might be mild ones. HPs require the suspension of your suffragette and post-suffragette sensibilities. Continue reading
Miss Bates Reads Romance 