Not Quite a Wife

Not Quite a Wife by Mary Jo Putney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Laurel married James when they were very young and madly in love. He was her brother's best friend from the Westerfield Academy, and they met when he visited her home. After an extended honeymoon of bliss, they returned home to London. Before she could be introduced to the rest of his friends, she witnessed him kill an intruder with his bare hands, and the sudden violence frightened her so badly, she fled to live with her brother, wanting never to see her new husband again.

A decade later, James has a malarial attack in Bristol and is robbed by thugs while delirious. Good Samaritans bring him to the local infirmary and leave him in the care of the nurse on duty...Laurel. She recognizes him right away, and realizes that his fever isn't due to his injuries, so she treats him with Jesuit's bark. While hallucinating, he clutches her, reigniting the passion kept tightly banked for ten years. However, the next morning, Laurel lets James believe it was just a dream, and they part ways again, believing it to be forever.

A few weeks later, Laurel realizes she is pregnant, notifies James, and he jumps at the chance to be part of her life once again. For the sake of the baby, they agree to tell people they've reconciled, dividing their time between Bristol, where Laurel runs her brother's clinic and the connected battered women's shelter, and London, where James is a spymaster for the British government. But Laurel's traumatic memories are not easily eradicated, despite all she learns about the extenuating circumstances of that night, and she doesn't know whether she'll ever be able to put it behind her.

I've never witnessed my husband do anything violent, so I have no personal experience with which to compare, yet I groaned in frustration many times while reading because Laurel was so quick to panic and so slow to listen--a common trait among teenagers, and one I really thought she should have grown out of in the intervening years. Also, even once she knew the full story, the mitigating circumstances barely made a dent in the walls she'd built around herself.

Nonetheless, the story was absorbing, the characters felt like real people, and I stayed up way too late reading because I had to know how James was going to catch the kidnapper. I'm very much looking forward to reading the next book in the series, which tells Laurel's brother Daniel's story.

For readers' advisors: character and story doorways, as well as setting (i.e. Napoleonic War era in England). I'd almost characterize it as "Christian Fiction," given the critical importance of Laurel's faith to the story, but there are some sex scenes--albeit not terribly explicit--which you don't typically find in books labeled "Christian Fiction." It's the 6th book in the Lost Lords series, and it's best if they're read in order because the characters from all the other books show up in this one.

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Nowhere Near Respectable

Nowhere Near Respectable by Mary Jo Putney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars, really.

When Lady Kiri Lawford accidentally overhears her potential mother-in-law insulting her and her mother, she is so furious, she "borrows" the best horse in the stables and sets off alone for her brother's house in London. Not the smartest plan in the world, as it turns out, because while still far from home, she stumbles across a group of smugglers who capture her, chain her up in a cave, and then begin debating the merits of raping & killing her versus holding her for ransom. She is ultimately freed by a combination of an honorable customer of theirs and her own skills, including using her diamond ring to saw through the manacles and her knowledge of hand-to-hand fighting.

Her rescuer turns out to be Damian Mackenzie, friend and former classmate of her brother's, owner of a fashionable gambling establishment and the illegitimate brother of Lord Will Masterson. Even though Mac is not really suitable marriage material, he appeals to Kiri's rebellious side, and she can't quite make herself stay away from him once they are back in London. One night, she and a friend sneak out and go masqueraded to Mac's club under the pretense of repaying him the money he spent rescuing her. They see it as a great adventure, but the adventure turns serious when Kiri notices a young woman being abducted and charges into the fray. The kidnapping turns out to be part of a much larger conspiracy, and soon Kiri is going undercover, using her unique perfumer's talent of identifying scents to locate the culprits.

The reason this novel didn't rate a full four stars (or more) from me is that it requires more than the usual amount of willing suspension of disbelief. I could believe that Kiri's childhood was unusual enough to have afforded her training in a particular type of Indian hand-to-hand combat, and I could even believe that she'd been trained as a perfumer. My own husband has an incredibly strong magnetic pull on me, so I could just barely stretch far enough to believe in the power of her attraction to Mac. But I had a hard time swallowing the concept that her brother the Duke, her stepfather the General, or her mother the Hindu princess would have ever allowed her to move into a boardinghouse for spies and go out unchaperoned, dressed as a doxy, looking for traitors and criminals!

Still, the story was highly engaging, and I enjoyed the historical thread regarding the state of the British royal family during the Regency period. It was a fun read.

For readers' advisors: story, character, and setting doorways. Some sex and swearing.

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Sometimes a Rogue

Sometimes a Rogue by Mary Jo Putney
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

More like 3.5 stars. I'd say four, if it weren't for the slightly-too-easy escapes from disaster. And the fact that Mariah going into labor in the opening scene was a bit too sudden and dramatic. Not that water breaking and things going awry isn't likely, especially in that day & age, but as someone who is currently waiting for labor to start, I can tell you that water breaking--as the first sign of labor--is almost certainly not followed seconds later by second stage labor (i.e. the pushing phase), no matter what is portrayed on tv or in movies.

Still, I really enjoyed the story of Sarah Clarke-Townsend and Rob Carmichael. She's the identical twin of the pregnant Duchess of Ashton; he's the Bow Street Runner and friend of the Duke of Ashton who races to rescue her from the kidnappers who've abducted her by mistake. Sarah is no fragile flower, though, and Rob's admiration for her intrepid spirit grows by the hour as they struggle to evade capture throughout the Irish countryside. A near-death calamity leads to Sarah claiming, for expediency's sake, to be his fiancee, which turns out to be the best thing for both of them as they turn pretense into reality.

This is a great series for keeping oneself entertained and distracted. I seem to have accidentally skipped book #4, however, so I do need to go back and locate that one now.

For readers' advisors: story and character doorways, primarily, but also historical setting (Regency England). Several sex scenes later in the book, but thankfully not especially explicit. Some mild swearing, particularly on the part of a young girl who's spent an unfortunate two years with her crude and abusive grandfather.

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Never Less Than a Lady

Never Less Than A Lady by Mary Jo Putney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I started reading this book before I knew it was #2 in the Lost Lords series, and I kept feeling like I was missing something, so I put it down and went in search of the first one. Once I finished that one (Loving a Lost Lord), this one made much more sense!

Never Less Than a Lady is the story of Julia Bancroft, abducted by her dead first husband's buddies and rescued by Major Alexander Russell. To protect her--and because there is a reluctant attraction between them--they get married. Then they have to learn how to build a life together.

Mary Jo Putney is one of my favorite romance authors, but this book--like the one before it--left me a little dissatisfied at times. I just felt like it was too easy for Julia to get over her abusive past. Admittedly, I've never been abused (hooray!!), but from everything I've read or heard, that level of torture and abuse doesn't simply melt away over the course of a few months just because you've met Mr. Fabulous. Even though her physical scars are years old, the complexity of her emotional scars should have taken more time, patient work, and pages to heal. The same is true for Benjamin--not even children learn to trust again that quickly. It was just unrealistic.

For Reader's Advisors: story and character doorways



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Loving a Lost Lord

Loving A Lost Lord by Mary Jo Putney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Mary Jo Putney is one of my favorite romance authors, but this is not one of her best books. It has great potential, despite the gag-inducing cover (WHY do publishers do that?!), but the end really felt a little too rushed, and the survival rate of the characters was improbably high. Still, I'll probably read the rest of the series as it comes out, and I'd give the first 80% or so of the book 3 1/2 to 4 stars if I could.

The premise of the book is that Mariah Clarke's father won an estate in a card game, and after he sets off for London to visit his estranged family, the former owner returns to persuade Mariah to marry him, telling her that her father has been killed. He is persistent, and she tells him she already has a husband who is off fighting in the Peninsula. Not long afterward, Mariah rescues a nearly drowned man with amnesia. On impulse, she tells him he's her husband, which does get her unwanted suitor to leave, but proves a complicated lie to maintain.

For reader's advisors: story and character doorways.



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