Someone to Watch Over Me, by Lisa Kleypas

I am indulging in another re-read, a historical romance. This is the first book in a trilogy about the famed Bow Street Runners of late Regency-era London. ¹

Reader beware: there’s graphic sex on the page, some adult language, attempted rape, and a fair bit of whorephobia.

Oh, and I spoil a key plot point in the review–though, if you’ve read some romance, you likely already know, from the blurb alone.

Boomerang (1992) (sort of a movie review)

Since the whole thing started when I said that there’s not enough groveling at the end of Boomerang, it was obvious that it would be the inaugural selection for #RomancelandiaMovieNight. ¹

Dreaming of You, by Lisa Kleypas

I’m back with another historical romance from Lisa Kleypas–and not just any one of them.

For a rather large number of romance readers, Derek Craven, the hero of Dreaming of You, is up there with Mr Darcy, as far as favorite romantic heroes go. Ergo, the book shows up often on “top 100” romance lists.

I, however, came late to Ms Kleypas’ books; this book had been out ten years, if not twelve, when I finally read it, and I had read a lot of romance during that time (including a number of Ms Kleypas’ later novels) so my opinion has always been…a tad less enthusiastic than the norm, shall we say.

As usual, reader beware: there’s explicit sex and cursing on the page.

Dreaming of You, by Lisa Kleypas

This is the second book in a duology; Derek Craven, our hero, was introduced as a rather important, and quite intriguing, secondary character in Then Came You, published a year earlier.

Our heroine, Miss Sara Fielding, is a little country mouse who just happens to be a well known novelist, and who is visiting London to research her next opus. And let me tell you, this background for the heroine creates all sorts of problems for me.

Here’s the (as always hated) blurb from my copy:

After the Night, by Linda Howard

Update: please note that Linda Howard came out as a raging MAGAt tRumper white supremacist in 2016. If you don’t own this book and want to read it, I hope you can get it used or from your local library.

As some of you know, I took a very quick trip home last week. While the occasion was my mother’s 80th birthday, the lion’s share of preparation and actual effort was for my sister.

In order to maximize the benefits of these efforts, we keep a spreadsheet as a Google document. That way, should she manage to find a title on the “books to get” list she can mark it off, and I won’t be carting duplicates to her. In the same manner, I will mark off those books she requests as I get them.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t done the best job at this so far. Not only did I take her one duplicate on this trip–despite begging her since February to double check the list–but I found seven other duplicated books, from previous shipments, that she had sneaked to my mother’s house.

After some swearing (out of range of the parental unit), I grabbed them and tossed them in my bag. Good thing I did, because while my flight down there was on a new plane, the trip back was on a relic that didn’t have outlets to charge my phone. All those books? Yeah, out of reach.

But there it was, a dog eared print copy of one of my favorite Linda Howard books, coming to my rescue.

Now you get my thoughts.

Please note: there’s an attempted suicide, subtle sexual coercion, and some generalized Southern asshattery in the novel.