A Lady's Lesson in Scandal in Fans of Eloisa James & Julia Quinn

Jan 10, 2012 Caz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favourites, kindle, 4-stars, 2016-mt-tbr, romance-1850-1900s, 2016-tbr-challenge

4.5 stars rounded up My June read for the TBR Challenge.

This month’s theme of Favourite Trope was easy. Or rather, picking the trope was easy; I needed to do a bit of searching around for a book featuring it I haven’t read yet! There are few tropes I actively dislike, but I’m a sucker for a good marriage of convenience story. I love the idea of two people who don’t or who hardly know each other being put into a situation of enforced proximity and intimacy and watching them as they come to know a ...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Melissa rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-reads

I found this to be a fascinating book -- very different from so many of the period romances that I have read in the past. This book had an almost anxious feel to it because nothing felt permanent. Because of Nell's anxiety for her future, I was never able to feel comfortable about that future as I read, and it kept me glued to the pages until the very end. This story is similar to a My Fair Lady, with Nell in the role of Eliza Doolittle, and Simon in the role of Professor Henry Higgins -- if Pro I found this to be a fascinating book -- very different from so many of the period romances that I have read in the past. This book had an almost anxious feel to it because nothing felt permanent. Because of Nell's anxiety for her future, I was never able to feel comfortable about that future as I read, and it kept me glued to the pages until the very end. This story is similar to a My Fair Lady, with Nell in the role of Eliza Doolittle, and Simon in the role of Professor Henry Higgins -- if Prof. Higgins were an amazingly handsome, kind, empathetic, and talented composer who was also an earl. This is, at its heart, a romance, but there is a deeper struggle that is going on throughout that made this rise above most romantic reads. Nell has grown up in the slums of London, scraping by to earn all that she can while slaving away at a factory with way substandard conditions. She lives in fear of being attacked by local men with less than pure intentions, and she lives with an abusive step-brother who is prone to drunken rages. Her mother is dying, and they cannot afford to get her any decent medical care. And that's just the beginning chapter of the book. Nell is not your typical romantic heroine. She is coarse in so many ways, but she is strong, and she is intelligent. Her knowledge far exceeds any who live in her conditions. Nell finds herself at her lowest when she is forced to steal to try to get help for her mother. Her mother dies, nonetheless, but in her dying words, she explains that Nell has a father who is a wealthy earl. Nell writes to him to beg his help for her dying mother but gets no reply. Needless to say, she's pretty ticked off, so she decides that her best recourse after the death of her mother is to dress up like a man, break into the earl's mansion, and blow his brains out. Things might have been simpler then, but of course, that was only the build-up to the bigger story. When Nell arrives in the earl's bedroom she finds that the earl died, and in his place is the new earl, a distant relation with a wicked sense of humor. Once he gets the gun away from Nell he keeps her at his mansion rather than turning her into the police, and the next day he discovers that she has a remarkable resemblance to the late earl's daughter. The late earl had twin daughters, but one of the daughters was taken away at a young age, and despite all his searching, the earl never found her. She had been taken by one of his servants after he had an affair with her but then cut the whole thing off without ceremony. That servant ended up being the woman that Nell had always thought was her mother. To add to the intrigue, the earl was a major jerk of a man, and he treated Simon horribly. When he died, he left all his money to the twin girls -- Katherine, who is under the care of a terrible guardian, and the missing twin. Simon received nothing, so he had the earldom and the property that went with it, but no money to maintain it. He needs to marry a wealthy woman to be able to take care of the earldom, but then the very best option falls right into his lap when Nell shows up in his bedroom to kill him (well, actually the late earl, but she was willing to make an exception and take him out instead). The two of them decide to work together to prove that Nell is the lost twin and earn half of the late earl's fortune. And so the training in how to be a proper society lady begins. I won't get into more detail about the plot of this book, but suffice it to say, this is a fairly complicated plot as far as these types of books go. It took a little bit of time to get into it and truly see what the trials for these characters would be, but once I figured it out, I found it very intriguing.

So, enough about the plot -- let me get to my feelings about this book. In some ways this was so frustrating to read because I could see that Nell and Simon were beginning to fall in love. I could especially see how much Simon cared about her. He never really seemed to mind the fact that Nell had come from such a disreputable situation, even before he found himself falling in love with her. Nell was on her guard at first, but eventually she began to trust Simon more, and she let herself open up more to him. She was concerned that he intended to keep her around as his own personal prostitute, so she was very insistent that things wait for the marriage to take place. But, even after the marriage, I don't believe that she really thought that he was involved with her for any other reason than convenience. Nell had built up so many walls around herself to protect herself while she was in poverty, and when her relationship with Simon progressed to the point where she was letting down her guard and forming a true attachment with him, she would quickly rebuild those walls to protect herself. She never felt confident about who she was. She never felt worthy of Simon or his world -- no matter how much training she received or how the society reacted to her. She felt like a street urchin, and she could not understand how anyone could see her otherwise. Even when things seemed to be going her way, she was constantly preparing for it to crumble away and leave her with nothing again. My brother was adopted from Vietnam when he was two many years ago. He had spent those two years in an orphanage where he needed to push to get the food that he got, and he was hungry and didn't know when his hunger would be satiated. So, at two he came to our home where there was plenty of food for him all the time. And yet, for many years he would hoard food, hiding it in unlikely places throughout the house in case he needed it in the future. It was an unnecessary practice, but because of his years going without, he just couldn't trust that this food given to him would be there when he needed it next. This is common with children who come from this kind of background, and I thought of this while I was reading about Nell. Although she originally came from wealth, her entire bank of memories included heartache, pain, and fear for the future. She was so used to things turning out badly for her that she just couldn't trust that things would turn out in her favor ever. No matter how much Simon would declare his love, she just couldn't believe that it would last. It was so frustrating to read, but I think that it was extremely true to life. Those ending chapters of the book, and in particular, Nell's choices in them, were so hard to read. I was angry with her a lot, but at the same time I could see her fear. Ultimately, it was as Simon observed -- she was a coward. With all of her strength of character and personality, she was afraid to step out and take a risk in order to live a life of love and happiness with Simon. This was a great book to read and explore the issue of how our past can determine or undermine our future. It does require a leap of faith sometimes to find true happiness, despite the risks that could come from that leap. Luckily, Nell was lucky to have found the perfect husband for her to take that leap. I just loved Simon. In some ways I think that the book focused so much on Nell's issues that it missed some opportunities to really explore some of Simon's issues as well. I really enjoyed reading about those discussions that Nell and Simon had when he opened up about the vulnerabilities of his life growing up under the house of the terrible late earl. Those moments showed the strength of the ever growing relationship between Nell and Simon.

So, final verdict -- This is a very good period romance. It is a little darker than some can be with difficult themes to think about as I read, but I enjoyed those issues that I could delve into as I read this book, and I do recommend it. ...more

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Sep 02, 2011 Mimmy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I understand and agree with the other reviewers' references to Pygmalion and My Fair Lady. The characters Simon and Cornelia do parallel Henry and Eliza. I liked their stories and character development. As the objective was to discover if Cornelia was truly the missing heiress I do wish there had been more time devoted to that plotline. It feels as though most of the action happens in the last few chapters, as if there is a rush to finish the story and tie up loose ends.

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Jul 05, 2011 Vivian rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-romance

I just didn't feel the magic between the hero and heroine--that gradual, sweet, yet hot vibe was definitely missing. Honestly, not a big fan of either character--they just felt sort of flat despite having decently detailed pasts. There was also something irredeemably scummy about the hero finding the heroine attractive in a very lustful sort of way in the first few scenes when she is starved and essentially helpless. He almost seemed to like her as this "gutter trash" novelty, like something he ...more

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Dec 03, 2012 Tahyun rated it liked it

Shelves: genre-romance, genre-romance-historical

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 12, 2011 Dls rated it it was amazing

Wow. This book is a real tour de force. Duran creates the most credible depiction of a girl from the slums meeting a lord that I have ever read--I don't think I'll ever read another (including rereading some of my favorites) with belief again. At the same time, I really believed in the attraction between the two. I also really liked the relationship between the two sisters. About the only thing I didn't like in this book is the name, which is pretty much unrelated to anything that happens. ...more

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