Karen Robards: Shameless

Shameless: C
Elizabeth Banning & Neil Severin
The Banning Sisters Trilogy #3
Historical - Regency

Lady Elizabeth, the youngest and most headstrong of the three Banning sisters, has been engaged three times, and has most scandalously broken off all three engagements. Her fear of becoming any man's property has kept her from marriage and earned a reputation in the ton as a heartbreaking flirt. Neil Severin is a wicked rogue, black of heart and black of reputation. A man of no morals, devoid of compassion, he is a government-sanctioned assassin. And his newest target is a man Beth holds dear. When the flame-haired beauty thwarts his plan, Neil exacts his own brand of spicy revenge. Beth despises him. Neil doesn't care. But circumstances most unexpectedly throw them together, and with Beth's life in danger, Neil finds himself in the unexpected role of hero, racing to save her before it's too late... (back cover)

Here are some facts:

1. I have read all three of the stories about the Banning sisters.
   
2. I loved the first one: Scandalous.
   
3. The second one, Irresistible, was pretty cliched and uninteresting.
   
4. The third - this story - is slightly more interesting but still pretty cliched.
   

OK. End of review.

Just kidding... sort of.

What more to say about this novel other than the fact that I've been waiting years and years for Beth's story only to have it sort of peak and then plateau into an abyss of semi-blandness?

I liked Beth, though I couldn't really relate with her unwillingness to have any man be her master. I mean, I knew she was headstrong and stubborn, but when I read Scandalous (book 1), she was but 15. What 15 year old isn't headstrong and stubborn? Ms. Robards neglects to delve into Beth's psyche as to why she dislikes marriage. What we know about Beth's cruddy family situation is from past books... and authors cannot rely on back information from other books to support the current story. Besides, I never got Beth's perspective on it. (In this aspect, Meredith Durant did a better job in explaining Mina's absolute insistence on being her own person in Written on Your Skin. )

And I liked Neil, but only in the most vague and superficial manner possible. As in, he fulfilled the part of the cold, heartless assassin in a manner that was most expected. Cliched, I suppose.

Surprisingly, the adventure was enough to keep me reading without sighing in irritation and without copious amounts of eye-rolling.

HOWEVER!

The way Ms. Robards ended the novel was bad. As in, without the epilogue, there would be no happily-ever-after. In essence, she didn't end the story: the epilogue was the last chapter of the novel. Why she labeled it as an epilogue is beyond me.

Authors, 'epilogues' are not used as last-chapters. It is a step beyond the end of the story. It's the "what happened after the happily-ever-after? Where are they now?" chapter, not a "let me finish the story."

Let me explain myself another way.

An epilogue is a bonus feature that can be taken out without adversely affecting the story. The story will still have an ending without the epilogue.

Without the epilogue at the end of Shameless, it would have felt unfinished and would have been highly unsatisfying. This is the point I would add in the WTHeck?! This is Ms. Robard's, like, twentieth book. I would think she knows all this already......

Regardless, the entire story proves to be a most average sort of story.

Bottom line: Read, I suppose, but don't buy.

Karen Robards: Nobody's Angel

Nobody's Angel: A++
Susannah Redmon & Ian Connelly

...The titillating story, set in 1769 in the Carolinas, of a minister's daughter who falls in love with the indentured servant whom she's purchased. Susannah Redmon, a 26-year-old spinster who's spent the last dozen years acting as a mother to her three younger sisters and helping her widowed father run the family farm, decides to buy an indentured servant at a public auction. Her choice falls on Ian Connelly--filthy, starving, and suffering from repeated beatings; before he can work, Susannah must nurse him back to health. As she does, she discovers, of course, that he's devilishly handsome. Soon the formerly prim minister's daughter--in an engaging Lady Chatterley-like situation--is romping about with her bound man in a most unseemly fashion…

Um, let me tell you how much I love this book.

Since I first read it, around eight years ago, I’ve re-read it at least twenty times, at least twice a
year. When I’m feeling gloomy, I pop open this book. When I’m feeling sad, I pop open this book. When I’m feeling moody, I pop open this book. When I’m feeling happy, I pop open this book.

Plot-wise, I realize that it is very shallow. The ending is rather rushed. In fact, the entire book is two-hundred sixty pages. If a new reader were to read this book for the first time, I’d think that she would be wholly unsatisfied at the lack of description in many of the scenes.

However, I’ve reread this book so many times that the scenery, the characters and their attitudes have come to life for me. More than anything, I love love this book because I relate to the heroine so intensely. When Susannah reacts to a situation in a certain manner, I wholly relate and can completely imagine myself doing what she did.

Susannah buys an indentured servant, a bound man, to help out at her family’s farm. Her father is a pastor, and she is the eldest of three younger sisters. Because her mother passed away when she was fourteen, she grew up overnight, and assumed the position as the head of the household, as her father was preoccupied with his congregation.

Now, she is a spinster at age twenty-six, and is the town’s angel. She cares for others and takes on their worries. To her dismay, she falls in love with her too-handsome indentured servant. She is unaware of Ian’s past life and chooses him anyway.

I love that Ian is able to look past Susannah’s looks and spinsterish attitude and loves her for her very huge and soft heart, and I love that Susannah is such a strong character. She’s in your face and is able to take command when she needs to – she’s the glue that holds everything together, and she does it in a fabulous manner.

I have a feeling that I will be a minority in obsession over this book, but I love how the characters are so real to me. A keeper on my bookshelf, forever.