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With Only One Kiss
Though well-loved by the village children to whom she tells stories, woodcutter's daughter Juel Reynaude saves her own heart for Baron Orion Sutherland, a high-born man who barely knows she is alive. Original.
447 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published December 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
December 7, 2025
Reading with someone can make all the difference ❤️
✧˖°.⊹📖 Buddy Read with Lori 📖⊹.°˖✧
Let's be honest, this is not a great book. It's maybe sort of fine. The thing is,
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🕮⋆˚࿔✎𓂃 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
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✧˖°.⊹📖 Buddy Read with Lori 📖⊹.°˖✧
Let's be honest, this is not a great book. It's maybe sort of fine. The thing is,
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・
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🕮⋆˚࿔✎𓂃 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐲 𝐟𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐞𝐰
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March 15, 2026
I’ve heard many times, how older books sometimes don’t age well. This would be a classic example, in my opinion. I’m sure I would have gobbled this up in the 90s and thought it was awesome and romantic. But today, not so much! Let’s meet our cast:
🐚 The heroine, Juel (‘jewel’) - had seashell shaped ears and breasts like small doves. She was a sweet, motivated heroine that was always on the look out to help others.
🦶The hero, Orion - had muscular toes. He had a traumatic upbringing, thanks to the evil Scardon (who may or may not have SA the hero, it was never clear). He starts the story off with a drinking problem that leads to drunken tantrums and his castle mates scared of him. He suffers from instalove with their first kiss.
⚰️ The hero’s new wife by proxy, Ranice - had a coffin made especially just for her body size, that she brought with her when she traveled. If she found herself bored or lonely, she would go stare at her dear coffin, as it was her favorite piece of artwork and gave her much comfort. She was horrid, and added nothing to the story.
🤮 The heroine’s brother, Jay - was the village sleaze-bucket. Chased as many skirts as he could on page until the insta-love bug bit him and we are supposed to forget he was a manwhore the first half of the book and see him as honorable now that he is in love with Dawn. Seriously, it was the fastest onset of insta-love I’ve ever read.
👩🏼🌾 The kitchen lady, Dawn - also had breasts like soft doves… and a big fat yellow braid. Her romance with Jay adding nothing to the story except page filler.
🔄 Sights and sounds are richly detailed, I’ll give it that. But the actual plot was all over the place with so many things going on. We had several mysteries to solve, multiple missing people to find, rescuing of orphans several times, adultery taking place, mystical elements, three different instalove romances/couples going on, spying and wars going down….. I really only kept pushing myself to read further to figure out the mysteries. And to be honest, I’m not sure all of my questions were answered…
💟 I didn’t feel the romance at all, things just herkily jerkily happened. For most of the beginning, I felt that I didn’t know what the hero was thinking or feeling regarding the heroine, except for his actions. And those actions gave me whiplash, not knowing if he was coming or going. When they finally do have sexual relations, it’s not sensual or anything to write home about. Or maybe I was just too unengaged to care and I actually started to skim the cheesy, purple-prosed attempts at romantic scenes. (I probably would have loved it in the 90s though.) Then it turned into sex marathons (7 times in one night, yowsers!)
🗣️Banter was not witty and charming, but more on the unrealistic, overly dramatic and corny side.
⚠️ Warnings - might be important to some readers: The heroine is basically the OW as the hero starts the story by having just wed Ranice by proxy. Once Ranice finally arrives to take her place as his wife, the hero and heroine still interact and carry on secretly, him hoping to impregnate her. Regardless of what later becomes of the status of his marriage, at the 50% mark, the hero and heroine are essentially committing adultery to be together.
Would I recommend it? No, not unless you really like the old-style bodice rippers and all of the corniness that goes with it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars for the laughs and keeping my attention to the end.
🐚 The heroine, Juel (‘jewel’) - had seashell shaped ears and breasts like small doves. She was a sweet, motivated heroine that was always on the look out to help others.
🦶The hero, Orion - had muscular toes. He had a traumatic upbringing, thanks to the evil Scardon (who may or may not have SA the hero, it was never clear). He starts the story off with a drinking problem that leads to drunken tantrums and his castle mates scared of him. He suffers from instalove with their first kiss.
⚰️ The hero’s new wife by proxy, Ranice - had a coffin made especially just for her body size, that she brought with her when she traveled. If she found herself bored or lonely, she would go stare at her dear coffin, as it was her favorite piece of artwork and gave her much comfort. She was horrid, and added nothing to the story.
🤮 The heroine’s brother, Jay - was the village sleaze-bucket. Chased as many skirts as he could on page until the insta-love bug bit him and we are supposed to forget he was a manwhore the first half of the book and see him as honorable now that he is in love with Dawn. Seriously, it was the fastest onset of insta-love I’ve ever read.
👩🏼🌾 The kitchen lady, Dawn - also had breasts like soft doves… and a big fat yellow braid. Her romance with Jay adding nothing to the story except page filler.
🔄 Sights and sounds are richly detailed, I’ll give it that. But the actual plot was all over the place with so many things going on. We had several mysteries to solve, multiple missing people to find, rescuing of orphans several times, adultery taking place, mystical elements, three different instalove romances/couples going on, spying and wars going down….. I really only kept pushing myself to read further to figure out the mysteries. And to be honest, I’m not sure all of my questions were answered…
💟 I didn’t feel the romance at all, things just herkily jerkily happened. For most of the beginning, I felt that I didn’t know what the hero was thinking or feeling regarding the heroine, except for his actions. And those actions gave me whiplash, not knowing if he was coming or going. When they finally do have sexual relations, it’s not sensual or anything to write home about. Or maybe I was just too unengaged to care and I actually started to skim the cheesy, purple-prosed attempts at romantic scenes. (I probably would have loved it in the 90s though.) Then it turned into sex marathons (7 times in one night, yowsers!)
🗣️Banter was not witty and charming, but more on the unrealistic, overly dramatic and corny side.
⚠️ Warnings - might be important to some readers: The heroine is basically the OW as the hero starts the story by having just wed Ranice by proxy. Once Ranice finally arrives to take her place as his wife, the hero and heroine still interact and carry on secretly, him hoping to impregnate her. Regardless of what later becomes of the status of his marriage, at the 50% mark, the hero and heroine are essentially committing adultery to be together.
Would I recommend it? No, not unless you really like the old-style bodice rippers and all of the corniness that goes with it.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3 stars for the laughs and keeping my attention to the end.
June 28, 2018
Orion Sutherland was surrounded by darkness and knew of nothing but war and drinking. Juel Reynaude was a light to the village orphans who were enchanted by her stories. These two beings find in each other a love neither sought but both desperately needed.
December 10, 2020
Kind of a beauty and the beast plot in way. Old England with a fairy tale
September 22, 2014
A typical historical romance, with the woodcutter's daughter, Juel, dreaming of becoming a real-life heroine. She loved telling fairy tale stories to the village children. After being lost in the woods she stumbled upon a castle that she thought belonged to a drunken ogre of a baron named Orion. She was put to work in the kitchen of the castle. Orion saw her and was enchanted with her beauty and wit. Before long, they fell in love. It was the two of them letting go of their secrets and confiding in each other that unlocked his heart and brought peace to them both.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews