A Few Good Men: Cherry Ripe by Claudette Williams

Gold Stars:  None
Squee Hearts:  None
Black Marks: 
Testrogen:  Low


The blurb was what interested me in Claudette William's Regency romance, Cherry Ripe.  Shauna Elton is being forced into an arranged marriage by her step-mother Lady Elton.  Before she can learn Lord Damien Drummond is the intended, Shauna runs away, and she is rescued by none other than Lord Drummond, who has never met or seen his intended either.  By a sequence of events, Shauna ends up being the governess to Drummond's half-siblings, twins, a boy and girl Bromley.  Good fun, that.  Too bad lines like the following occur quite frequently throughout the novel:  "Why had he let her get away without bedding her?  What had happened?" (Williams 23).  Why indeed!  Needless to say, such lines don't earn Drummond any points in my book--any good points, that is.

A Few Good Men: A Civil Contract by Georgette Heyer

Gold Stars: None
Squee Hearts: None
Black Marks: None
Testrogen Level: Low

 I came up with this series while reading a Regency romance last week.  Just as I don't like to speak bad about my role model, Georgette Heyer, I don't like to speak mostly bad about the men I review for blog series.  After all, "if one doesn't have anything nice to say, one shouldn't say anything at all" goes the old saying.  But I do have some nice to speak about the main character, Adam Deveril aka Viscount Lynton.

Lynton is of the Quality, but his late father left him with a mountain of debt, and he is considering selling his estates, which cares deeply for, to cover it and to make sure his sisters have their dowries and are cared for.  Though he has some initial qualms about it, he makes a marriage of convenience with a very wealthy Cit's daughter--a Cit being a member of the merchant class who does business in the City section of London.  The problem is Lynton is in love with a woman of his own class, Miss Julia Oversley, and because of his debt state, he has to call off the engagement.  Though that is not the end of their relationship.