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

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

I got it--finally. Sheesh. What is it with my memory? Her website indicates she has a new book in a different series coming out winter 2011. Monica, thanks for your faith in me!

I know I have read it but I can't place it. I'm going to have to think...

She's a new author, so she only has, I think, 4 others? The Duke of Shadows is her first--it may be my favorite but its a little grim. Then Bound by your Touch and Written on your Skin are sort of a twosome that happen at the same time. And Wicked Becomes You.
They are all very different each from the other. Wicked Becomes you is perhaps a little more lighthearted than the first three. I recommend them al.

Oh you are In for a treat! Enjoy! Everything she has written is worth reading.

FInished Storm's Heart. I still really liked it, but it didn't end as strongly as it finished. The development of the relationship between teh two wasnt as interesting or complex as in the first book. And really, the hero doesn't seem to keep developing as a character after a certain point. That's, I guess, a realistic problem for a many thousands of years old former god, but it made the book somewhat less interesting. Still, I stronglhy recommend it and am definitely reading what she writes next.

I'm probably a third of the way into Storm's Heart by Thea Harrison. Wow. I loved her first book but wasn't at all sure she could keep it up. Well, I'm impressed. A very different heroine and a very compelling story. For a new author, she's VERY impressive. I am not a paranormal fan but I really love her stuff.

Oh, I know this one! I loved the book--I felt the author really went deeper with her characters than she had ever done before--her books were more humorous and almost parody, but this one had really moving moments and this is one of them. Like you Janga, I am waiting for the heroine to get her HEA.

I am finishing an old Candice Hern that Janga recommended--Miss Lacey's Last Fling. I'm not a big Hern fan, but this is really charming.

I went with two teen boys. I had to love it when one said, after Hermione and Ron usethe basilisk tooth to kill the goblet, get flooded, and kiss, "Great date!"
Group consensus was that it was well done but not as good as the book.
I'm intrigued that my daughter and many of her friends kept saying "that's the end of my childhood"....because they grew up with Harry.

I think they both had it pretty rough. But of the two, I think Eleanor had it harder.
What I loved about the book was how beautifully Duran conveyed the world view gap between the hero and heroine. Most books that do a Pygmalion type story tend to do it almost from the upperclass person's perspective--I mean, you don't really see how different it looks for the person who is being offered a way out of poverty. Here, Nell is utterly convincing that way.

Trying Candice Hern's old regency, Miss Lacey's last fling, on Janga's recommendation (at Justjanga.blogspot.com)

Advance Review Copy,I believe. Anyway, its copies of books that go out in advance of publication to people who might write reviews.

Oh, Donna, I'd love to know what you think of that non fiction book.
I finished Slightly Married and the Amorous Education of Celia Seaton. I'm now reading The Bride Wore Scarlet by Liz Carlyle. I have already read our August book read, which I loved. But I have I think six books pre-ordered on my Nook for August 1 or 2 (the new Sarah Mayberry, Karina Bliss, Victoria Dahl, Jodi Thomas, Jennifer Ashley, and Thea Harrison). That's got to be one of the things I love most about it--that I get books the day they are released, without having to go to the book store or wait if they are not in stock yet. For people like me who don't get ARC, that's wonderful.

I am reading 5 books at once--I was planning to read the amorous education of Celia Seaton and I loved the beginning, but I also started to look up something in Slightly Married and am in the middle of a reread. And I'm periodically reading Claire Tomalin's biography of Jane Austen, Joy for Beginners by Erica Bauermeister, and a book on building yr home. When I finish a few of those I plan to turn to The Bride Wore Scarlet, Cat's Tale by Bettie Sharpe, and if I can get it the new novella by meljean brook!
Am I the only person who reads several books at once?Does anyone else in this group?

It's Slightly Married by Mary Balogh. It's a marriage of convenience story. There are so many things I love about it; one is that what keeps the two apart is the same thing that ultimately draws them together--they both put others before themselves and are innately honorable. Another is the theme at the heart of this scene -- the hero is a gentle man who loves farming and was forced into the life of a soldier.
And then there are some wonderful lines and scenes ....I could go on and on.

Oh no... I forgot to post the reminder--you can post comments about the book and hints but don't give away the title or author, I'll post it tomorrow night.
Its definitly one of my favorites by her too, and I always forget how much I love it until I reread it. We could probably exchange favorite bits out of the book...

There are so many moments in this book that I love, and I've always fallen a little in love with the hero by this point, but I think maybe this is where the heroine really sees him for who he is, and starts to fall in love with him.

“I am a killer,” he said abruptly. “I kill for a living. There is nothing very amusing about that.”

She looked up at him, her needle suspended above her work. He frowned. Now why the deuce had he said that? He had not consciously thought that way for years. He had never spoken such thoughts to anyone, least of all a woman.

“Is that how you see yourself?” she asked. “As a killer?”

He wanted to shock her then. He wanted to shake her out of the complacence most English people seemed to share, perhaps because the realities of war were very remote to them, safe as they were on their secure island.

“It is said that every woman is in love with a uniform,” he said. “At present I believe everyone in England, man and woman alike, loves a uniform, provided it is British or Prussian or Russian. Everyone loves killers.”

“But you have been fighting tyranny,” she said. “You have been fighting to free countries and the countless people who inhabit them from the clutches of a ruthless tyrant. There has to be something noble and right about that, even if you do have to kill some enemy people in the process.”

“Next year,” he said “or the year after, it will perhaps be Russia that is the enemy, or Prussia or Austria or America—and France that is the ally. The British, of course, are always on the side of good and right. On the side of God. God speaks with a British accent—did you know that? A refined, upper-class English accent, to be precise.”

She had lowered her needle to the cloth, but she continued to gaze at him.

“I am a killer,” he said again. “The great advantage of being a soldier, of course, is that I will never be hanged for my crimes. I will be feted and adulated instead. The ladies will continue to fall in love with me, even though I am already married—and even though I do not smile.”

What the devil was he babbling on about? He was feeling vicious—and alarmingly close to tears. He wished he could jump up and dash from the room without looking like an idiot, or that she would look down and get back to work. He could not remember when he had so lowered his guard before—perhaps it had not happened since he was a boy .

“I am so sorry,” she said at last. “I had no idea. I assumed that because you look so… I did not understand. Is it deliberate, I wonder, that we block out the shocking reality of what happens when one army defends the freedom of a nation against another army? And that we forget that an army is made up of real men with real feelings and consciences?”
“I beg your pardon.” He got to his feet and turned his back on her, staring down into the unlit coals in the fireplace. “I gave a foolish answer to the simple question of why I do not smile. I believe I do smile, ma’am.”

I just tried a new to me author that Sherry Thomas blogged about: Bettie sharpe. Read her novella Ember, a Cinderella retelling, and was blown away. Going to read her book Cat next.

Actually you can do this with zucchini blossoms or squash blossoms or pumpkin blossoms--I hate eating all of them but love eating the flowers

I spend a lot of time in the summer cooking squash blossoms--I pull off the 5 stringy green sepals, wash and cut them up, and then saute them with garlic and onion in butter. If I have a lot--maybe 40-60--I can use this to make soup (and will happily post that recipe for anyone who wants it.) If I just have a few, then I scramble them with eggs, or add them to a tortill with oaxaco or mozzarrella cheese to make a squash blossom quesadilla.
I think of this as a relationship food--my husband loves to grow and eat Zucchini and I hate them. So if I cook almost all the squash blossoms, he gets a few zuchini, and he loves squashblossoms too so I can keep him happy without spending my summer cooking zuchini!