Tag: Manda Collins

Wrapping up NetGalley January

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | NetGalley> NetGalley Month

NetGalley January is a wrap. Well, the thing is, January is over, and since the little snowman in the picture says it was NetGalley January, there you are. That’s it for the month.

Those of us signed up for the 2012 NetGalley Reading Challenge are just going to have to soldier on, chortling with glee at all the lovely egalleys NetGalley will be sending us through the rest of the year. Every month can be NetGalley Month.

But back to the wrap. And I must use plastic wrap, since everyone needs to be able to see what I read.

Two books came out of my NetGalley TBR pile from September and October:

 

 

 

 

 

In addition to The Black Stiletto, which was fascinating, I also read the start of a very neat new mystery series, The Dharma Detective. I can’t wait for The Second Rule of Ten.

 

 

I also read a couple of Regency Romances from relatively new authors that were both a little different from the usual. It’s always interesting to see authors take the standard tropes and stretch the boundaries just a little bit. Or in the case of A Lady Awakened a “lotta” bit.

I read one YA/Cyberpunk that received a lot of buzz, and from the other posted wrap-ups, it looks like I’m not the only one who read Cinder. This title was highly anticipated. (I was turned down the first time I requested it, so I replied directly to the publisher outlining my specific review qualifications and was okayed on the second go-around).

Banshee Charmer is the start of a great new urban fantasy/paranormal series from a brand-new author. The author is doing a blog tour and the book is getting a lot of very nice attention.

 

 

I liked the first book in the Dark Dynasties series, Dark Awakening,  quite a bit, so when the second book, Midnight Reckoning listed on NetGalley, I grabbed it. Definitely fun for paranormal romance fans.

 

 

And, as always, I rounded out my reading month with titles from Carina Press. The icing on my reading cake: more urban fantasy and paranormal romance, and my science fiction romance fix for the month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I posted thirteen reviews this month on NetGalley. I did finish a fourteenth book from NetGalley, The Devil of Jedburgh by Claire Robyns. But because I reviewed it for Book Lovers Inc., I can’t post the review on my site until after the review on BLI goes live, and that’s scheduled for February 9. I also finished The Night is Mine by M.L. Buchman sometime the night of January 31, but I can’t swear whether it was before or after midnight. I know that night was his, I just didn’t keep track of how much of it! So there you have it. My tally for this NetGalley Month. It’s all good for the 2012 NetGalley Reading Challenge. And it was all good reading!

How to Dance With a Duke

Posted on by Marlene Harris | Author : | B Reviews> book reviews

How to Dance with a Duke by Manda Collins has all the elements to make a delightfully frothy Regency romance; the hero is a Duke as well as a wounded warrior and the heroine is a bluestocking who only needs a little wardrobe consultation to transform from ugly duckling to beautiful swan.

Then there are the added elements from the dawn of modern archaeology, the men of the mysterious Egyptian Explorer’s Club who refuse to let our heroine translate her father’s diaries from his most recent expedition. And there are mummies and curses and of course, grave robbers and black market collectors.  A little mystery and mayhem always spices up a romance.

This romance starts out a bit rocky. When our couple first meet outside that Egyptian Explorer’s Club, they have both been shown the door. Miss Cecily Hurston, because unmarried ladies are not permitted inside under any circumstances. His Grace the Duke of Winterson, because he is not a member. And he is never going to be a member, either. On the Club’s most recent expedition, his brother, Mr. William Dalton, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and is presumed dead. Cecily’s father, Viscount Hurston, led that expedition, had some kind of falling out with his secretary, and now lies in a coma. His death is believed to be imminent.

Of course, Hurston’s secretary was the Duke’s brother William. Lucas wants to find out what Hurston knows, but Hurston isn’t talking. He isn’t conscious. Failing that, Lucas would like to talk to Cecily. But when they meet outside the Explorer’s Club, they have their first fight. Not their last.

In spite of the continuous arguments, they finally agree to join forces. Lucas needs to find out what happened to his younger brother, not just for his own sake, but also for his mother’s. Not knowing is eating them alive. Cecily needs her father’s journals to figure out what happened; the stories going around London of a mummy’s curse may be ludicrous, but her father is deathly ill. Without the journals, she has no answers. Her father wrote in cipher, and Cecily is the only one who can translate the cipher besides Lucas’ brother. If something tragic occurred that brought on a seizure, they all need to know what that event might have been.

The action in this story takes on the breakneck pace of a serial melodrama, between the romance, the mummy’s curse, and the society parties that form the backdrop of the investigation into the Egyptian Explorer’s Club and its possibly nefarious ways.

The Duke doesn’t actually dance. War wound.

Escape Rating B-: This is a romance defined by how much the hero and heroine fight their attraction to each other, fight with each other, and fight about everything that happens between and around them. If “obey” was in the marriage vows, Cecily probably didn’t repeat that bit.

I would have enjoyed this book more but I felt that Cecily held on to her grievances a little too long. I understood why she protected herself after her disastrous first engagement, but she stayed angry and withdrawn too long after the marriage, which takes place in the middle of the book. Cecily and Lucas’ arguing was part of their pattern, but her cold withdrawal went on too long for this reader.