A Valentine's Day Contest!

Ello Moonlings!

The always incredible is hosting a Valentine's Day contest on her blog! Anyone can enter and the prize is an awesome gift set that includes an ARC of Molly's newest book A Witch's Handbook to Kisses and Curses and a Jane Jameson death by chocolate candle! Here's a link for it (sorry I haven't yet figured out how to post pictures and stuff to make this sleeker. I can't even make the font bigger.)

http://www.singleundeadfemale.blogspot.com/2013/02/special-valentines-day-half-moon-hollow.html

Lord of the Scoundrels by Loretta Chase

I loved Loretta Chase’s Lord of the Scoundrels. Loved it! Loved it! Loved it! It was different from the other Reformed Rake stories. But as I sat down to right this review I had no idea what to say or why I loved it or how to say it. Sure it was very funny and humorous. Jessica and Dain were hilarious and multi-dimensional characters. The situations they got into were comical and I found myself laughing out loud all the time. I also adored Jessica’s brother, Bertie. He was such a simpleton. Seeing him struggle to quote Dain on something to Jessica made my day. But the humor wasn’t the only reason I enjoyed Lord of the Scoundrels.

Lord of the Scoundrels starts out with a prologue of Dain’s early life. His childhood was literally hell and I hated reading it. When his mother eloped and his father told his 8-year-old son that dogs would eat her I was furious. Nothing good happened in Dain’s youth. But as much as I disliked the prologue, it’s needed to truly understand the person he grew up to be and without it the book wouldn’t have been nearly as good so I applaud its inclusion. Flashbacks and reflections are limited in their detail so that the flow of the book isn’t disrupted, and decrease how much the reader gathers from them emotionally. But the prologue sits outside of the story and can therefore be as emotional and detailed as it wants.

While I said that Lord of the Scoundrels was different from other rake stories, it was difficult to pinpoint exactly why it stood apart. I think it’s because of how Jessica and Dain interacted with each other. Jessica is different from the typical romantic female. She wasn’t a complete innocent (while Jessica IS a virgin, she is very knowledgeable about relationships and love due to her awesome grandmother), she wasn’t very rich or poor, she wasn’t having problems finding a husband (in fact she receives about 6 proposals a year), she’s independent, instead of having a responsible male figure to live with she had to raise Bertie and served as a nanny for other cousins and had plans to open an antique shop for financial security. These parts combine to make a very confident and dynamic leading lady. I loved how Jess fully accepted that she lusted after Dain and even tried to seduce him on occasion. She was by far the more aggressive in the relationship. Other heroines seem almost baffled by their respective men, and they’re so wrapped up in their own conceptions and fears that they continually misinterpret situations. But not Jessica. She not only properly comprehends what Dain’s demons are and works to help him, but she’s also the first to realize her feelings and act upon them. Dain is just as complex and interesting as Jessica. His scars are great and heartbreaking. He has problems with females and such but Dain stands apart from his counterparts in other books because he also has problems with emotions in general and his self-image. Thanks to prologue, I really felt connected to him emotionally and like I truly understood where his character came from. Poor dear really thinks that he’s an ugly fiend from hell. The women issues seem small in comparison to Dain’s other problems.

Besides the awesomeness that is Jessica and Dain, Lord of the Scoundrels’s plot was just as good as its characters. I loved how Jessica and Dain decided to get married in the beginning of the book as opposed to the end and the events leading up to their marriage. The fact that Jessica actually shot Dain was hilarious (I wish she had more opportunity to use a gun, it made for a nice quirk in her character) and Dain’s reasoning for marrying her was great. The “big problem” at the end was wonderfully done. I won’t say what it was exactly, it wasn’t the normal relationship issues and secret or misunderstanding that pushes the couple apart, but it was an issue that happened in Victorian times but isn’t usually used as a major plot piece in books. Dain and Jessica argue about it but the focus is on Dain coming to terms with his past and issues rather than a huge separation and reconciliation, which I really liked.

As I’ve said, I loved Lord of the Scoundrels. It was a wonderfully enjoyable read that I’ll definitely revisit along with Ms. Chase’s other works.