Midnight Pleasures (Pleasures, #2) in Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn

Sep 24, 2014 Aarann rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: meh, angst, alpha-male, fun, library-read-don-t-buy

3.5 stars.

I just can't bring myself to give this book 3 stars, but I'm not altogether sure I think it's worthy of 4 either.

Sophie and Patrick were fun to read about, but I'm not sure how much I would want to re-read this one. I'm fairly tolerant of a Big Misunderstanding generally, but these two stretched my patience. The back of the book is a good description of the first half of the book, preceding the marriage of Sophie and Patrick -- Sophie rejects Patrick's proposal for that of a dimwitted 3.5 stars.

I just can't bring myself to give this book 3 stars, but I'm not altogether sure I think it's worthy of 4 either.

Sophie and Patrick were fun to read about, but I'm not sure how much I would want to re-read this one. I'm fairly tolerant of a Big Misunderstanding generally, but these two stretched my patience. The back of the book is a good description of the first half of the book, preceding the marriage of Sophie and Patrick -- Sophie rejects Patrick's proposal for that of a dimwitted earl and, while her reasons are because she does not want to love her husband (and she knows early on she will love Patrick if they marry) to protect herself when he inevitably begins to stray, Patrick believes it is because she wants a title.

And so it begins.

Basically, this is a book about two people who could probably have shortened their book by at least half if they would have bothered to have a conversation. Let me reiterate, normally this sort of thing doesn't bother me (it's better than a half-conceived villain or an eleventh hour misunderstanding that comes out of nowhere and is there for the sole purpose to separate the characters so we can have them reunited in the last chapter), but it got frustrating after a while. Not only do we have the initial misconception, but we have something like five others that follow after it that grow in magnitude and scope as the novel goes on. I love me some angst and drama, but this got to be a little much for me.

The two eventually do get their act together, but honestly, it just seemed like something they could and should have done shortly after their marriage. This would have made an excellent short story rather than a full-length novel. That said, this was by no means a bad story, just far from my favorite Eloisa James novel. She's one of those authors that, for me at least, even her stuff that is just sort of "meh" for me, is still light years better than many other authors. That said, I won't buy this one and probably won't ever re-read it. I was reading several other books at the same time as this one (I tend to have a book on the Kindle, the Nook, an audiobook for the car, and often a physical book so this ADD was standard and wasn't due to any particular boredom with this particular book) and one of them was part of a series that I desperately wanted to keep reading -- I kept thinking How much longer until I can finish this Eloisa James and read the next book in this other series instead? which probably isn't the best recommendation for a novel.

This isn't a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but there's not much that stands out about it. If I was going to recommend any Eloisa James books to someone, it wouldn't be this one. I'd probably only recommend this to a die-hard Eloisa James fan. ...more

Like · see review

Nov 07, 2010 Grace Elliot rated it it was amazing

Swoon! This is historical romance at its best - characters that get right under your skin and a penultimate chapter that had me in tears. Such evocative writing - and then oh joy -there's another book n the series... ...more

Like · see review

Sep 17, 2010 Diane rated it liked it

Shelves: hx-romance

Good read, still felt a little long, but quite interesting. A little frustrating in how long and drawn-out the non-communication lasted, but over all, enjoyed the book.

Like · see review