Rating: 
Summary: Provocative.
Review: Now this was fun! A country house party filled with scandalous, flirtatious women. Properly-bred ladies, ethical in their way, but misunderstood by society. "A Wild Pursuit" is a story saturated with lust and desire, yet the author sidesteps heavy intimacy. However, it is the lightweight jealousy Eloisa James employs that delivers the most appealing reading sensation - humor. This is a comedy of errors. A mixture of misunderstandings that create tantalizing subplots that keep the pages turning for the reader. The only male guest invited to the house party is Stephen Fairfax-Lacey, the Earl of Spade. This puritanical gentleman is a respected Member of Parliament, and a duke's heir. To his utmost delight, Fairfax-Lacey finds himself hobnobbing with these scandalous women. The women have included him in this celebration because he is husband material. If the marriage plans don't work, Stephen might be the perfect man to be a lover. Unhappily, Lady Beatrix Lennox finds herself very interested in his love talents. Lady Beatrix is a social outrage. Caught in a compromising situation during her debut season, she truly remains on the edge of society. Initially, I found Beatrix and her rebel attitude too foolish and too extreme; however, I did warm up to this character by the time the book ended. But it is Fairfax-Lacey's preoccupation with this lustful little upstart that is sheer entertainment. The second subplot is the enticing tale of Esme Rawlings and Sebastian, the Marquess Bonnington. This is the first romance book I have read where a late-stage pregnant woman engages exuberantly in lovemaking and relishes the activity. This passionate intimacy is a magnificent move by the author. Sebastian is a splendid man. He is a caring lover, he is concerned, he is soothing, and he frequently talks to the unborn baby. Sebastian loves Esme, but Esme is confused. She has decided to become respectable. Unfortunately, the Marquess laid the groundwork which resulted in her husband's death. To marry now would create a scandal of enormous proportions. To this reader, Esme's beliefs are nonsensical. But, I will grant Esme's irrationality to hormones running amuck in the late stages of pregnancy. Finally, the subplot that aroused this reader's future buying attention. Helene Holland, the Countess Godwin is truly out of place among these impulsive party women. For Helene is a lady, a gentlewoman who is also lonely. She exists in a life separated from her heartless husband Rees Holland, the Earl of Goodwin. Far too young when they eloped, these two people sadly discovered they were incompatible. Rees accused Helene of being a frigid lover, and now he lives his life akin to an alley cat. This scoundrel flaunts his mistress, allows her to occupy Helene's bed chamber, in a house Helene once called home. Enough is enough. Helene eyes Stephen Fairfax-Lacey as the tool to end this vile marriage, she will commit adultery, and finally get a divorce. Although the story began slowly, it grew, and soon I was hooked. This is the first book I have read from Eloisa James, and I enjoyed this effort very much. Undeniably, I will go on and read Rees and Helene's story in "Your Wicked Ways." Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.
Rating:
Summary: Provocative.
Review: Now this was fun! A country house party filled with scandalous, flirtatious women. Properly-bred ladies, ethical in their way, but misunderstood by society. "A Wild Pursuit" is a story saturated with lust and desire, yet the author sidesteps heavy intimacy. However, it is the lightweight jealousy Eloisa James employs that delivers the most appealing reading sensation - humor. This is a comedy of errors. A mixture of misunderstandings that create tantalizing subplots that keep the pages turning for the reader. The only male guest invited to the house party is Stephen Fairfax-Lacey, the Earl of Spade. This puritanical gentleman is a respected Member of Parliament, and a duke's heir. To his utmost delight, Fairfax-Lacey finds himself hobnobbing with these scandalous women. The women have included him in this celebration because he is husband material. If the marriage plans don't work, Stephen might be the perfect man to be a lover. Unhappily, Lady Beatrix Lennox finds herself very interested in his love talents. Lady Beatrix is a social outrage. Caught in a compromising situation during her debut season, she truly remains on the edge of society. Initially, I found Beatrix and her rebel attitude too foolish and too extreme; however, I did warm up to this character by the time the book ended. But it is Fairfax-Lacey's preoccupation with this lustful little upstart that is sheer entertainment. The second subplot is the enticing tale of Esme Rawlings and Sebastian, the Marquess Bonnington. This is the first romance book I have read where a late-stage pregnant woman engages exuberantly in lovemaking and relishes the activity. This passionate intimacy is a magnificent move by the author. Sebastian is a splendid man. He is a caring lover, he is concerned, he is soothing, and he frequently talks to the unborn baby. Sebastian loves Esme, but Esme is confused. She has decided to become respectable. Unfortunately, the Marquess laid the groundwork which resulted in her husband's death. To marry now would create a scandal of enormous proportions. To this reader, Esme's beliefs are nonsensical. But, I will grant Esme's irrationality to hormones running amuck in the late stages of pregnancy. Finally, the subplot that aroused this reader's future buying attention. Helene Holland, the Countess Godwin is truly out of place among these impulsive party women. For Helene is a lady, a gentlewoman who is also lonely. She exists in a life separated from her heartless husband Rees Holland, the Earl of Goodwin. Far too young when they eloped, these two people sadly discovered they were incompatible. Rees accused Helene of being a frigid lover, and now he lives his life akin to an alley cat. This scoundrel flaunts his mistress, allows her to occupy Helene's bed chamber, in a house Helene once called home. Enough is enough. Helene eyes Stephen Fairfax-Lacey as the tool to end this vile marriage, she will commit adultery, and finally get a divorce. Although the story began slowly, it grew, and soon I was hooked. This is the first book I have read from Eloisa James, and I enjoyed this effort very much. Undeniably, I will go on and read Rees and Helene's story in "Your Wicked Ways." Grace Atkinson, Ontario - Canada.
Rating: 
Summary: A hopeless muddle
Review: This author was recommended to me by a friend as an example of how to write a good romance. I will give you all the same reply I gave her as to why it is such a mediocre book.
The manuscipt is littered with errors right from the first page. There is no excuse for this with a spell and grammar checkers on most computers these days.
The first chapter is nothing more than pages and pages of exposition and background information dressed up as dialogue, with no sign of the main characters expect as people to be gossiped about in the vaguest way. Hero-male of species, Heroine-scandalous woman-but then they ALL are in this book so why do they care? They don't. They flout convention, so there is nothing at stake.
When the hero and heroine meet, there is no heat, just a rather crude leering on the hero's part. Then he decides to seduce secondary character Helene to play it safe, because she is married. Complete hypocrisy is not a very worthy character trait in a hero.
We get reams of tedious info about Helene's failed marriage, husband, husband's mistress, her music, her husband's career. In fact, we get the entire past sexual histories of all of the characters within the first 30 pages or so. Not subtle at all. There is way too much internalization, especially for people who are not the main characters. The internal monologue is not delineated with italics, so we get long paragraphs that look hashed together.
Even worse, Stephen suddenly wakes up at the age of 43 and decides to be married, wonders where the last ten years have gone, and decides he needs sex? Ludicrous. The author can't write about men at all.
Why have such a panoply of characters and affairs? THREE! It only waters down the romance between h and h. We want heat and passion, not a costume drama which is about as memorable as one of Rees' White Elephant Operas. This is also an absurd way of the author setting herself up for the next book with Rees and Helene-we need to care about the characters enough to see them through, and while they are trying very hard to be witty and charming, I see nothing of interest in any of them.
Helene deciding an affair is a great idea after years of chastity is also absurd. Once again, these characters have nothing at stake, they just do as they will. They are financially independent, can do as they like. This was not the norm for the period at all and destroys any tension she might have created. Where is the heroine! Lady Bea is a mere cipher.
Stephen is one note-Reform. The Tories were not interested in reform, so if he is Castlereagh's trusted man this is ridiculous. The little research that has been done is literally on the pages-an historical novelist should never show her corsets! One should introduce the historical detail as seamlessly as possible. Everything lurches, with jarringly discordant and jerky notes like Helene's waltz. I won't even go into the whole age of the waltz debate which readers love to argue about, except to say that it is not some newfangled thing as they all make it out to be. Stephen as someone with little social life and experience of dancing is absurd for this time, period, especially given his single state and title.
There is little setting woven into the book at all. I get the dressing room and the Rose Salon, the goat pasture, but no specifics, furniture, size of room, curtains upholstery, even a fireplace would be nice. Their dialogue is jarringly modern in places.
I hardly even get any details about what any of them are wearing, usually a bit interesting. The setting is NOT integrated into the book in any meaningful way. The action, such as it is, could literally be taking place anywhere.
This pseudo-comedy of manners could take place at any time because the characters don't give a fig about mores and they have no basis in society, they just live in their own little world apart from Stephen and his misplaced Radical sensibilities if he is a Tory.
The romance part of it: well, what can I say. When they finally do 'it' there is so much mention of the goat I thought I was going to get a bestial menage a trois. There was no heat or heart to the encounters between them, and there was no sequel to the scenes-they have sex, and then we get another domestic drama chapter. He creeps into the room, douses her with water, and it just drones on to a very unexciting chapter end, with no follow up there either. I would have liked to see warmth, commitment, their affair advancing, their plans for the future. Them actually speaking to each other about something other than sex. They are like wind up toys jerking to their conclusion.
Instead of a real conversation, we get Bea proposing via Romeo and Juliet and the second 'heroine' via the Song of Solomon. Very unoriginal, it has all been done before, far better elsewhere, and the characters have so little to say for themselves they can't even use their own words to woo each other? Or the supposedly brazen hussy is suddenly coyly shy? We expect growth and development from really good characters, and consistency as well. They are consistently dull but not much else.
The two epilogues are ridiculous as well. These people are not firmly fixed in their society or they would never so blithely court scandal. None of them ever learn their lessons, they are just wilful, capricious and obey the dictates of their loins. I dread to think what will happen to Stephen and Bea when he starts to go impotent.
At best this is a mildly diverting book one can waste a few hours at the beach with, but in terms of capturing the Regency period, it is average to poor, and in terms of romance, it is poor.
The first thing you can teach ever author who comes to you for editing advice is, "A romance is the hero and heroine falling in love, and working toward a happily ever after ending." I wish writers would remember that.
Rating: 
Summary: A Delightful Menagerie of Characters and Plots
Review: This is my first book by this author, but will definately not be my last. I love her style of writing, she goes from one storyline to another in a very seemless fashion. The book is supposed to be about the story of Bea and Stephen, but surprisingly Esme and Sebastian also had their own wonderful love story.
I loved the fact that Bea was so unconventioneal, a trollop, that is something a heroine rarely is in a Regency novel. This is an unconventional regency that will make you laugh and pull at your heart strings.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your $6.99--There are better books
Review: What a disappointment. I have read other Eloise James books and liked them much better. Lame plot, lame characters--I could barely stand to read the whole thing, but I felt after having bought the book, I should make myself finish it. There's no rapport with the characters and not enough background to empathize with them. The only character you really understand is Esme, Lady Rawlings, and in theory, she's a subplot. Pick out something else, if you're tempted to buy this one.
Rating:
Summary: Heroines from the demimonde? Please!
Review: Why do I feel that Eloisa James is trying to make historical romances seem like contemporaries?
Her female characters--including the multiple heroines--are promiscuous and utterly contemptuous of society's mores.
Esme, the willing widow type, has had multiple affairs during her arranged marriage to an older man. Adultery in a heroine is hard to swallow, but this sort of behavior was condoned as long as the parties involved were discreet.
Ditto with Arabella, the aunt, a widow three times over. Okay, these two are not really heroine material, in my view, but they're borderline acceptable.
What isn't acceptable is the young, unattached Beatrice, ostensibly the primary heroine of the piece, who dresses and acts like a doxy because she was "ruined" and can never marry, so what other choice does she have? This is a heroine??? Well, perhaps if she had some terrible secret in her past that made her that way, but simply being a precocious teenager doesn't quite do it for me.
Eloisa James has this annoying tendency of creating convincingly depraved characters and then insisting that they really aren't so bad after all. I didn't like it when she did it with Rees Godwin and his mistress (that situation still makes me hot under the collar), and I don't like it here. Bea is either a tart or she is not, and I fear that any young girl who goes around offering herself to gentlemen has to be a tart. At least in the 19th century.
In the 21st century, society is more forgiving. But the ease in which these willing widows and demimondaine characters find their way into the upper echelons of 19th century society is simply not believable by anyone reasonably familiar with the period.
I can't recommend this book to anyone. In fact, James' last two books have been disappointments, and I won't even buy the one before that because of negative reviews and a likewise disappointing plot. Hopefully the tide will turn soon. . . .
|
