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The Romance Garden!

e92eb432815dc5ca41c6e80280b8df30After a long hiatus (mostly due to the fact that September was nearly gone before I realized it was here), we once again bring you the Romance Garden, where some of the Library’s genre devotees provide your mind with a little dirt, and plenty of love, in which to grow….

Bridget: The Captive Prince, by C.S. Pacat

3622688I’ll be honest with you, when I hear that a self-published e-serial has been released in paperback form, I usually find somewhere to hide.  Pacat’s sensational books, however, has not only made me a little embarrassed to admit my former prejudices, but is the exception to almost every rule out there.

Part fantasy, part mystery, part love story, the first novel in the Captive Prince trilogy sees Prince Damen of Akielos betrayed, kidnapped, and sold as a slave to his mortal enemy, the vicious and heartless Prince Laurent of Vere.  Though desperate and determined to escape, Damen quickly begins to realize that the court of Vere is a dangerous place, not only for foreigners, but for its Prince, as well.  But can Damen keep Laurent safe without betraying his own identity?

Pacat is the Queen of Subtlety, so the relationship between Damen and Laurent is a slow-simmering, tenuous thing that grows only by baby steps…but when they come, those moments are so delicious and revelatory and meaningful that they are simply unforgettable. Laurent himself has swiftly become one of my favorite heroes in romance–he’s tricky and nasty and petty, but scratching the surface shows plenty of hidden depths that are impossible not to love, even just a little.  Having already devoured the second book in this trilogy, I can only tell you that things get better from here, but we’ll all have to wait for Book Three together!

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Kelley:

51UT8PkYRAL._SX307_BO1,204,203,200_Pleasure for Pleasure by Eloisa James

The fourth and final book in James’ Essex Sisters series is sweet, witty, and peppered with plenty of Shakespeare. Eloisa James is a Shakespeare professor as well as a writer, so it’s no surprise that in addition to the main characters’ love of poetry and literature, the title of the book is a reference to Shakespeare’s play Measure for Measure.

Josie Essex is smart, funny, outspoken and beautiful, but after the ton’s resident bully dubs her the “Scottish Sausage,” not only does her debut season get off to a more than rocky start, but she becomes entirely uncomfortable in her own skin. Determined to repair her battered reputation and recover her self-esteem, she seeks out the help of a family friend.

The Earl of Mayne is a reformed rake and, in Josie’s mind, the perfect person to help her learn what to do to make men take notice of her. Early on, the interactions between Mayne and Josie are an appealing mixture of comic and caring, with Mayne viewing himself as an admiring protector and Josie seeing him as something of a big brother figure. Soon the two discover that there is much more to their relationship, but not before Mayne tries to attach himself to a French prima donna who is all wrong for him and Josie casts herself into a situation of potentially scandalous proportions.

A fun romance that will make you laugh out loud, Pleasure for Pleasure is guaranteed to make you want to read more Eloisa James.

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Melissa:

3643283The Photograph by Beverly Lewis
Eva Esch’s family has suffered a lot of loss.  Both of their parents recently died and now their youngest sister has run away from their Amish community in Eden Valley, Pennsylvania.  Jed Stutzman, a buggy maker from Ohio, is working through is own grief after losing his finance in an accident.  When Jed takes a train to Eden Valley to learn some new buggy making techniques, he stumbles across a copy of Little Women that is full of margin notes and a forbidden photograph of a young Amish woman.  Jed is captivated by both the wisdom of the writer who left her thoughts in that novel and by the looks of the woman in the photo.  When he meets Eva on his trip, he thinks he has found this intriguing stranger.  More importantly, he finds himself connecting with a woman for the first time since he lost his finance.  Eva is similarly smitten, but is also somewhat distracted by her missing sister, another young man who wants to be more than just friends and her older brother’s declaration that he and his wife and children will be taking over the family homestead and there isn’t room for everyone else anymore.
After being disappointed by the last Lewis novel I tried, The Photograph has restored my faith in one of my favorite writers of bonnet fiction.  Her trademark well written story with likable characters is present without the heavy-handed proselytizing that can creep into Amish romances.  The plot may rely a bit too much on coincidences, but it is still a highly enjoyable tale that weaves in nice tidbits about Amish culture.