Ten Things I Love About You by Julia Quinn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

GENRE: Adult, Historical Romance
FORM: Audiobook
NARRATOR: Rosalyn Landor
SERIES: Bevelstoke Series

SYNOPSIS: Annabel Winslow has been sent to her Grandparents house for no other reason than to find a husband that can support her, her mother and her seven brothers and sisters. Right off the bat, she has a prospect; the Earl of Newbury. The Earl is a man older than her grandmother, is disgustingly overweight, and extremely overbearing, but he is determined to have Annabel, not only for her lush curves but also her promising childbearing hips. He is determined to get an heir so that his nephew, Sebastian Grey, does not inherit his title when he dies. Annabel is not happy with this prospect, but is willing for the sake of her family.

Sebastian is a man who is known for his passive personality, and rakish ways with the women; especially married women. He enjoys his easy life, and has no immediate intentions of marrying. However, when Annabel Windslow shows up on the scene, there is something about her personality and laugh that draws him to her. His attention to her ends up becoming a scandal and a much gossiped about love triangle between the Earl of Newbury and the heir of the Earldom, with Annabel trapped in the middle.

REVIEW: This is the first book that I have read by Julia Quinn, and I must say I enjoyed it thoroughly. I became instantly attached to the characters she created; especially to Sebastian, the charming, silly, sarcastic, rake. He really has stuck with me the last few days while I was listening to these books.

I really enjoyed her storytelling abilities. She made both Sebastian very three dimensional, both having fun personalities, but also having a lot of depth in their characters. The scandal in society was amusing, and many of these scenes were breathlessly sexy.

WHAT I LOVED: Sebastian’s character. He was just an outright, honest and good person. He was amused frequently by Annabel, and he himself was amusing. I really enjoyed watching him fall in love. I also loved when we finally got to hear the 10 things he loved about Annabel.

NOT SO MUCH: Too much of the Earl. I continued to think we were “rid” of him, and then it seemed like he kept coming back, which made the ending feel like it dragged on and on.  I also am not a big fan of the cover of this book.  It makes me think the book is contemporary instead of historical. 

OTHER BOOKS IN THE SERIES:

 

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Music & Silence by Rose Tremain
Winner of the 1999 Whitebread Award for Novel
Genre: Adult Fiction

Summary from flap of book:

Winner of the Whitebread Novel of the Year Award, Music & Silence is the story of a young English lutenist named Peter Claire who in 1629 arrives at the Danish Court to join King Christian IV’s Royal Orchestra. From the moment he realizes that the musicians have to perform in a freezing cellar underneath the royal apartments, he understands that he’s come to a place where the opposing states of light and dark, good and evil, are waging war to the death. Designated the King’s “Angel” because of his good looks, he finds himself falling in love with the young women who is the companion of the King’s adulterous and estranged wife, Kirsten. With his loyalties fatally divided, how will Peter Claire find the path that will realize his hopes and save his soul?

I do not think that this summary is very adequate for this book, in that it is giving you the false idea that this book is mainly about Peter Claire, when it is in truth about a wide array of characters. This is a novel, of many stories about lovers and love, about good and evil. There are many villainous characters in this story, many of which happen to be women, one of the main villains happens to be the almost-Queen, Kirsten. Although she isn’t so much a villain as she is a selfish brat who expects people to be 100% devoted to her and let no one or thing share in that and who’s only concern is herself 110% of the time. The book is an unwinding of and revelations of many characters who are all connected in some way, and in the end you feel satisfied that everyone got exactly what they wanted and quite possibly what they deserved. The characters that you will love are, indeed Peter Clare and his love, Emilia. Below is my favorite excerpt of this book, and actually does reveal Rose Tremains beautiful writing style:

“Then they stand just apart and stare at each other, and wonder whether they feel as Adam felt and as Eve felt when they contemplated themselves in paradise, and knew that, of all the wonders God had created, the man and the woman were the most extraordinary. They do not feel the shiver of autumn in the air. They are only distantly aware of the luminous sky and the white doves. One of the golden pheasants lets out a loud, irritable squawk (as though it thought that it, with all its superior finery, should be the object of their rapture) but they pay it no attention. They are face to face with all that they have longed for through the summer and they let it hold them perfectly still, as though caught in a trance, as though they might stand that way for ever.”

I cannot say that I loved this book, but I did like it. I think the part that bothered me was how the book would jump from one person’s point-of-view to the next at very short intervals, it almost felt soap opera-ish in that aspect. I don’t mind seeing the story, or in this case, many stories unfold in a single book under different points-of-view, but this felt much to choppy and my attention for the book would start to wane. When asked by my husband if I liked this book, my response was, “well the fact that it took so long for me to read should partially answer this question.” But the fact that I indeed did finish the books indicates that the book was worth of reading. And of course you don’t need me to tell you that, it IS an award winner. While I may have had a hard time with the books jumpiness, and I definitely would not rate this book among my favorites, this book is surely worth your time!

*Originally posted 3/19/08 on my other blog

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

(from Amazon.com)

Having set up the central misunderstanding of the novel, Austen then brings in her cast of fascinating secondary characters: Mr. Collins, the sycophantic clergyman who aspires to Lizzy’s hand but settles for her best friend, Charlotte, instead; Lady Catherine de Bourgh, Mr. Darcy’s insufferably snobbish aunt; and the Gardiners, Jane and Elizabeth’s low-born but noble-hearted aunt and uncle. Some of Austen’s best comedy comes from mixing and matching these representatives of different classes and economic strata, demonstrating the hypocrisy at the heart of so many social interactions. And though the novel is rife with romantic misunderstandings, rejected proposals, disastrous elopements, and a requisite happy ending for those who deserve one, Austen never gets so carried away with the romance that she loses sight of the hard economic realities of 19th-century matrimonial maneuvering. Good marriages for penniless girls such as the Bennets are hard to come by, and even Lizzy, who comes to sincerely value Mr. Darcy, remarks when asked when she first began to love him: “It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.” She may be joking, but there’s more than a little truth to her sentiment, as well. Jane Austen considered Elizabeth Bennet “as delightful a creature as ever appeared in print”. Readers of Pride and Prejudice would be hard-pressed to disagree. –Alix Wilber –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Who doesn’t love some Jane Austen? Okay, I must be honest, this is the first of her books that I have read. And of course I love it. I already loved all the movie adaptations, which is what made me pick up one of her books. I did have to concentrate a bit more reading this book than others, because I found the language would loose me if I wasn’t paying attention. Not that I have a hard time understanding, but just that in the time that this book was written they spoke so differently than we do now that if I found my mind wandering, I also would find that I didn’t really know what was going on in the book. I must say I was disappointed in the lack of dialogue – in parts where the books seemed to just summarized the events that took place, I wanted to hear the conversation itself. Either way, of course this is an excellent book!