Moonlit

Rating:
Summary: For true romantics only
Review: This was a beautiful love story (and contrary to the last review, the protagonists weren't at all plain). Nell and Trevor were flawed but fascinating. Unlike too many romances where two too-different characters are manipulated into a pair, these two really belong together. I cried more than once and had a hard time putting the book down.

This is a keeper.

Rating:
Summary: Second disappointment from Jensen
Review: Trevor, Viscount Wulfstan, is another survivor of the Ten, the elite espionage corps who worked on the continent in the fight against Napoleon - we met Nathan in Entwined and Gabriel in Fallen. Wulf is the member who Nathan believed had turned traitor, only to discover near the end of Entwined that he was still loyal. Physically scarred since his teenage years, Wulf also carries mental scars.

At a soiree hosted by a famous courtesan, Wulf sees Nell Nolan, who is rumoured to have been the late Duke of Clonegal's mistress (and no, Harriet Klausner, she was never actually his mistress). Nell wants a favour: she wants one of her aristocratic flirts to take her to the Golden Ball. Wulf offers on condition that she spend the night with him; she accepts, but has no intention of fulfilling her side of the bargain.

When he discovers that she intends to welsh on the deal, Wulf is angry, but he decides that he will win her for himself. He does... but in the end surprises both himself and her by asking her to marry him. However, he believes himself incapable of love, and while Nell loves him, she believes that he can never love her back because he believes that she was a courtesan. Once they return to Ireland, though, things change...

Again, I was disappointed with this book. I loved Entwined, didn't care for Fallen, and now with Moonlit have just about decided not to read any more by Jensen. Her earlier work, in particular His Grace Endures and The Irish Rogue, ranks very high among my favourites, but this trilogy has been for the most part a disappointment. Halfway through the book, I still didn't really care about the two lead characters, which is a disaster in terms of reader commitment to the book. When I read a Balogh, a Putney or a Beverley, by two chapters in I'm hooked and desperately keen to find out what happens to the lead characters.

There were too many plot threads: I agree with the reviewers who said that. It's as if Jensen doesn't believe that a longer book can be carried on the basis of a romance/relationship plot alone, and so she feels compelled to add an action/dramatic plot. It was superfluous, and in the end felt forced.

And I was very disappointed to see that Jensen is getting sloppy in her writing. She's very good at Scottish and Irish history, language and idioms, and in previous books her characters have also managed to speak upper-class nineteenth-century English very well. In this book, though, she used too many Americanisms - and contemporary Americanisms at that. They jolted me right out of the story.

Wishing Jensen could return to the talent she showed in The Irish Rogue...

Rating:
Summary: A delightful romance
Review: Viscount Trevor Robard, grew up abused by a nasty father who not only left the man with physical and mental scars, he wasted the family estate so that the St. Wulfson heritage is one of decay and depradation. Trevor relishes his seedy reputation among the Ton as "Sin" though he also performs the dirty deeds for his country including assassination.

The Widow Nell Nolan, former mistress to the late Lord Clonegal, is on a quest of her own. She wants to confront Lord Routland over the money her deceased spouse left in his care for her when he died at the battlefield. Her only avenue to his estate is acting like a whore so that one of the rakes escorts her. Trevor agrees to take her to see Routland in exchange for an evening of sex. He succeeds, she confronts, but she also flees before their evening together. Nell fears Trevor because she knows he is the one from the broken mirror a long time ago in Ireland. Trevor plans to collect, but love is a powerful stimulant.

Award winning Emma Jensen has written a stalwart Regency romance that will thrill fans due to the lonely lead couple. The story line engages the audience from start to finish while showcasing the author's ability to refresh sub-genre elements. The keys remain Trevor and Nell who defy polite society that would prefer to flush them away. Ms. Jensen has another humdinger of a novel that will brighten the day of her innumerable fans.

Harriet Klausner