Dls’s Comments (group member since Sep 14, 2010)

Dls’s comments from the Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn group.

Happy holidays to all--
I just reread all three collections.
Anyone know of any Jewish holiday romances? Aside from Nita Abrams napoleonic war spy's series and one Rose Lerner story I don't know of any Jewish historical romances

I just reread this and a bunch of other same length same theme ones by this author. Great choice

Here's the schedule for the first half of 2017. Please PM me if the date doesn't work for you.
Deb
Jan 2 Manda
Jan 9 Phoenix
Jan 16 Okie
Jan 23 Janga
Jan 30 Cherie
Feb 6 Aly
Feb 13 Susan
Feb 20 DLS
Feb 27 Leigh-Ayn
March 6 Irish Eyes
March 13 Rachel
March 20 Manda
March 27 Phoenix
April 3 Okie
April 10 Janga
April 17 Cherie
April 24 Aly
May 1 Susan
May 8 DLS
May 15 Leigh-Ayn
May 22 Irish Eyes
May 29 Rachel

Wow. I have read and reread this and didn't even recognize the author. Great choice!

Actually Jemma does have affairs too. Cheat may be the wrong word since by then Elijah feels he has to give her the same freedom he had taken.

This series makes you really think about how most marriages of convenience didn't work and how duels were really dangerous. The couples have HEAS but on the way there James shows a lot of the misery these things caused

Leigh-Ayn the story of Jemma and Elijah goes through most of the series. They both have a lot growing to do. I believe originally she was going to have Elijah die and then changed her mind.

If it helps, they were both very young and it started as a marriage of convenience. I think long before they get together again it's pretty clear neither would cheat again.

If you hate cheating then you may love the second book in the series where the hero simply can't bring himself to cheat even though their marriage has fallen apart...

I have loved most of Durans books. I didn't like That Scandalous Summer. While I think A lady's lesson in Scandal is a truly amazing book I am not sure I would start with it. Maybe A Duke in Shadows or Bound By Your Touch.

I have no idea.

It's Black Hawk by Joanna Bourne.
I think my favorite is whichever one I am reading at the moment. But I will read anything she writes. Any interview she gives...

She used to produce about one a year. I think from something I saw she had personal complications that made the last two take so long. So I'm hoping those are over and she will produce more quickly ...

I'm reading Julie Anne Longs new book. I'm also re reading the. Puzzler

There is a word missing--the second to last sentence should end "old noble French families...."

If you want to be on the puzzler list list in 2017 please let me know here or in a PM.

One of my absolutely favorite authors has a new book available for pre-order. In celebration, here is an excerpt from one of her books. I think it shows how deeply she weaves together romance and spies, danger and humor.

Hero, Knight Companion of the Order of the Bath, former thief, master pickpocket from the rookeries of St. Giles, Head of the British Intelligence Service, stood beside Heroine’s bed, watching her breathe. He could trap air in a bubble. Whistle it out a wooden reed. Wave it around with a fan. He couldn’t push air in and out of her lungs. He couldn’t do a thing to keep her alive.
Friend said, “Did you ever go into that shop of hers and talk to her?”
“No.”
“I wondered,” Friend said.
“She wasn’t a threat with Napoleon gone. She was nobody that the Service had to watch.”
“You kept an eye on her,” Friend said. “Her and her shop.”
“Yes.”
Heroine was naked under the covers, pale and vulnerable. Bricks, hot from the oven, wrapped in flannel, were tucked up and down the bed, keeping the chill out. He’d laid her down inside that barricade. When he pulled the blanket up over her, she didn’t move.
She’d have a new scar when she healed. That made five. He knew the story of every one. He’d kissed them all.
She’d always been as pale as the moon. Skin you could almost see through. He used to lie beside her in the candlelight and trace the line of a vein up her arm to the pulse in her throat, then down to the mound of her breast. Or he’d follow one thin track up her leg to the silky, soft nest he never got tired of playing in. She was opaque now, as if the light in her had retreated to the core of her. It was gathered up there, keeping the chill out, keeping her life’s heat in.
Fate carries a sting in her tail. He’d wanted Heroine back in his bed. Now she was. But look at the price of it.
Friend came up beside him. “Luke says she has a good chance.”
“It’s his job to say that.”
“He’s too busy to lie.”
“Friends will always find time to lie to you. A heartwarming thought in a cynical world.” He set his knuckles against her cheek. Skin fluent as running water, sleek as air. He felt the vibration inside from her blood pulsing.
Even after all these years, he’d still wake up in the middle of the night, hard as a rock from dreaming about her. He’d never stopped being hungry for this woman. “I wanted her back and here she is. Fate is a perverse bitch.”
“Always.” Friend slipped his hand inside the blanket, to Heroine’s shoulder, testing her temperature. “She’ll make it. She’s hard to kill.”
“Many have tried.”
Her hair spread everywhere on the pillow. Light-brown hair, honey hair, so golden and rich it looked edible. He knew how it felt, wrapped around his fingers. Knew how her breasts fitted into his hands. He knew the weight and strength of her legs when they drew him into her.
A long time ago, she’d shot him. They’d been friends, and then lovers, and then enemies. Spies, serving different sides of the war.
The war was over, the last year or two. Sometimes, he walked outside the shop she kept, and looked in. Sometimes, he found a spot outside and watched for a while, just to see what she looked like these days.
The last time they’d exchanged words, she’d promised to kill him. He hadn’t expected her on his doorstep, half-dead, running from an enemy of her own.
I have the most dangerous woman in London in my bed.
Downstairs and distant, the front door opened and closed again. He couldn’t hear what his men were saying in the study, just the front door and the sound of rain coming down, urgent and hectic, like it meant business.
“Second friend traced the blood to Braddy Square. That’s where it happened.” Friend reached inside his jacket and drew a knife from an inner pocket and passed it over. “He found this, lying in a pool of blood.”
“Heroine’s.” A black knife with a flat hilt. Deep hatch marks on the grip for fighting. Balanced perfectly for throwing. “I gave her this.” Razor sharp, of course. Heroine knew how to respect a blade. “It’s been a clever and useful piece of cutlery today. It’s drawn blood.” He looked past the knife, down into Heroine’s face. “You cut him, nickname. Good work.”
He remembered putting this knife in her hands. Saying, “You shouldn’t walk around without one.” Gods. They’d both been kids.
“She’s carried it awhile,” friend said.
“A long time.” He could feel that in the steel—the years she’d kept it close to her skin. Why had she held on to it? “Now all we need to do is find a Londoner walking around with a slice cut into him.”
“Which don’t narrow the field as much as I’d like. And he might not be English. Could be the Prussians or the Austrians are still irritated with her.” Friend scratched the stubble on his cheek. “Or the French.”
“Given the length and ingenuity of her career, there are Swedes and South Seas cannibals annoyed at her.”
She’d kept his knife all these years.
He slid Heroine’s blade, still with the dried blood on it, under her pillow, putting the hilt to the left. That was the way she’d kept it at night, back when he knew her well. Maybe she’d thrash in her sleep and feel it under there and be reassured. Maybe she’d reach for it in her dreams and use it to hold death off.
Her breath caught in her chest with a rattle. Then silence. Cold sluiced over him. Time stopped…till she grabbed air again and settled to a slow in-and-out.
“She hurts,” Friend said. “They do that when they hurt. It doesn’t mean anything.”
A friend always lies to you.
She muttered something—he couldn’t make out the words—and turned her head on the pillow. She was shaking in all her muscles, as if the pain were trapped inside her body, trying to get out. He said “This isn’t sleep.”
“No.”
“I used to watch her sleep sometimes, back when I knew her that well.” He’d get out of bed after they made love and go stoke up the fire. He used to stand in the cold, naked, looking down at her, thinking how perfect she was. Not quite believing it was real. “She falls in deep, every muscle loose. It’s the only time she’s not a little watchful. Then she wakes up all at once, all over, smooth as a cat. Probably there’s cat in her ancestry someplace. Those old noble French families…”
“No telling, with the French. Inventive people.”

This week I have three just released books; the new Elizabeth Hoyt, the new Sarah Morgan and the new Julie Ann Long...

Oh I should have known...

Definitely haven't read it. Have a wild guess

Oh Karina Bliss is definitely an autobuy. What the Librarian did is amazing. And I like Zs cameo in Claire and Nates book.

I agree Janga.
I am not thrilled with the second book in the series. I don't think either the hero or the heroine handle her past well and I don't feel like at the end of the book that it's resolved--it feels like it would be an ongoing problem...

I finished Fall. I love Karina Bliss but this book didn't quite do it for me. I can't quite put my finger on why. Some of it was that I didn't think the relationship between Seth and his ex really felt realistic. It felt more like a plot device. Partly because Dimity's reaction to Z d news felt out of character--I can see her being upset but pretending not to be.... but not handling it the way she did. And partly because the way the couple gets together at the end just didn't work for me.