Tag / Amanda Quick

by mvbookreviewer

Review: Ravished by Amanda Quick

Format: E-book
Read with: Amazon Kindle & Microsoft Reader
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Hero: Gideon Westbrook, Viscount St. Justin
Heroine: Miss Harriet Pomeroy
Sensuality: 2.5
Date of Publication: December 23, 2009
Started On: April 15, 2010
Finished On: April 16, 2010

This is one of the best historical romances from Ms. Quick I have had the fortune to come across. Never a boring moment in the story of how Harriet, the daughter of the late Reverend teaches the “The Beast of Blackthorne Hall” to love and be loved again.

Gideon is a man who has been haunted by scandal for far too long. Being accused of impregnating the previous Reverend’s daughter and driving her to commit suicide after Gideon apparently ruined her and refused to marry her, a wake of scandal has followed Gideon everywhere he goes. And a hideous scar on his cheek certainly makes him befitting of the title “Beast” with all the rumors floating around.

Harriet when she summons Gideon, has no idea of what she has summoned exactly to her home. Nor does she care about all the rumors when Ms. Stone her housekeeper tells of the grisly events in hushed tones warning Harriet and her sister Felicity to avoid Gideon at all costs.

However, Harriet is a woman on a mission. Having an avid interest in fossils and the likes, she is impatient to rid the caves surrounding her home of the thieves who have been storing their loot exactly where Harriet goes on her discovery expeditions. Summoning Gideon, the owner of the lands seemed to be the only viable way to concoct a plan to get rid of the band of thieves once and for all.

Though Harriet doesn’t want to admit it, her 25 year old heart skips a beat every time she is around Gideon. Though everyone warns her to keep away from the man circumstances mostly of Harriet’s doing land these two in a compromising position that leads Gideon to offer for her hand in marriage as he is honor bound to do under the circumstances.

With everyone from the dwellers in the village to the ton in London rife with speculation on when Gideon would turn his back on his betrothed and the Harriet would be cast out of the polite society makes this book highly entertaining. I liked the fact that Ms. Quick doesn’t waste time on describing the frivolities of the London society which most of the time makes me snooze, but rather created a depth of detail on her characters so vivid that I loved Harriet right from the beginning.

Gideon proves everyone in the society wrong when he marries Harriet in a manner unlike that you see in most historical romances, and whilst the relationship between Gideon and Harriet continues to blossom, so does the story of how certain forces within the society works in adverse ways to make sure Gideon takes the fall again, and thus unfolds the story of what truly took place 6 years back.

Highly entertaining with a good dose of old fashioned romance for which as a reader, I couldn’t ask for more.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble | BooksOnBoard | Kobo

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Seduction by Amanda Quick

Format: E-book
Read with: Adobe Reader
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Bantam Books
Hero: Julian, Earl of Ravenwood
Heroine: Sophy Dorring
Date of Publication: March 1, 1990
Started On: December 2, 2009
Finished On: December 4, 2009

Found this book whilst browsing through FictionDB. I quite enjoyed this book, the story of how Julian, the Earl of Ravenwood, sophisticated and cynical about women in general after a disastrous marriage which ended up with his wife murdered and community folk in general whispering in corners that Julian had killed off his wife due to her nefarious ways, weds Sophy Dorring, brought up in the countryside, thinking that she would be the docile little wife that Julian wants, someone who wouldn’t get into all the trouble his first wife Elizabeth had always been found in.

Julian is in for a surprise when at first Sophy refuses his marriage proposal put forth through her grandfather. Shocked that someone who hadn’t impressed the ton during her coming out, who hadn’t got a single marriage proposal during the time, and quite past the age where the ladies of the ton got married, with very little inheritance to offer and just passable looks had the gall to refuse a godsend of an offer, Julian confronts Sophy on her trip back from an old friend of hers who grows medicinal herbs, a subject of much interest to Sophy.

Ultimately, these two wed, each of them having bargained for a set of conditions to be met, which Julian finds out to be unconventional and fascinating at the same time. Sophy’s conditions being that they wouldn’t consummate their marriage till a three month period during which Sophy and Julian should get to know one another better, her choice of reading material which is far and wide never be influenced by her husband and that she never be cast off to a home in the country side whilst Julian traverses in the city.

Julian quickly realizes the errors in his agreeing to the first condition, when he finds himself in lust with his new wife, whom he tries to seduce, but backfires on him in the most hilarious ways possible. I found myself laughing out loud several times whilst reading through bits of conversation between Julian and Sophy as well as the situations that Sophy tended to land herself in, not the docile and meek wife that Julian had bargained for at all.

To make things more interesting, upon realizing that trying to make Julian fall in love with her when to Sophy’s point of view that Julian had never got over the grief and pain caused to him by his first wife, pursues her little project of finding out who drove her sister to take the life of herself and the baby that she was carrying. With only a black ring of a crude design the only clue as to whom her sister had been holding clandestine meetings with, Sophy embarks upon a mission to make the man who made use of her sister pay for what he had done.

Things get interesting from this moment forward. Sophy and her quirky and eccentric friends help her in their ways to find out what the ring symbolizes, unraveling something far too dangerous that could cost Sophy her life in the end.

All in all, this was quite a fun read which I enjoyed immensely. With a surprising villain in the end, at least it was for me, this book proved to be a ‘seductive’ read which was hard to put down.

Purchase Links: Amazon | Barnes&Noble

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by mvbookreviewer

Review: Slightly Shady by Amanda Quick

Format: Hardcoverslightly
Read with: Hardcover Edition
Length: Novel
Genre: Historical Romance
Series: Lavinia Lake and Tobias March – 1
Publisher: Wheeler Publishing
Hero: Tobias March
Heroine: Lavinia Lake
Published on: May 2001
Started On: September 2009
Finished On: October 2009

This is the first book that I have read of this author; Amanda Quick an alias used by Jayne Ann Krentz. This book starts off in Rome, when Tobias barges into the antique shop that Lavinia and her niece had established in order to get by, after being cheated off by the lady with which they had made the journey from London.

Her antique shop shattered on the accounts from Tobias that the shop was being used by a vicious criminal organization for communication amongst their members by hiding messages in the antiques in the shop Lavinia and her niece finds themselves sent off to London and these two meet once again when Lavinia upon being blackmailed by someone, finding out who the blackmailer is, comes to his place to find that someone had murdered him and in the process finds Tobias at the scene who is in search for the diary that the blackmailer was using.

Then begins the rather fascinating journey these two embark upon after forming an uneasy alliance to find the diary before it reaches the wrong hands once again, with Lavinia changing her profession to become a private investigator like Tobias. Desire, passion and love takes a backstage in this novel, which had me laughing at the quirky dialogues between the two and the really funny situations that these two found themselves in at times.

The story ends with a rather unique twist, which I would say that I didn’t really foresee coming.

Purchase Links: Amazon | B&N | Kobo | eBookMall | iTunes

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