My Wicked Earl (Avon Romantic Treasure)

Rating:
Summary: Well done.
Review: Charles Stirling, the Earl of Everingham, is elated. Captain Spindleshanks, the man guilty of the spread of seditious material, is his prisoner at last. Or so he thinks... until he sees the prisoner, and finds he's a she....
Hollie Finch lost her father in what is beings called
the Peterloo Massacre. Innocent women and children were wounded by the soldiers, and Hollie cannot rest until she exposes the Earl and his investigation as being shoddy and not interested in the facts. No one knows that Captain Spindleshanks is actually a woman. So she invents a husband and says that he is the guilty party. Charles does not release her but instead keeps her as bait to lure the criminal. Her printing press is also under his watchful eye. With great caution, Hollie prints out another flyer, but little does she know that she could have printed anything right under Charles' nose. He can't read....
Other than Hollie seeming a bit too modern in her thinking, this is a thoroughly delightful novel, set in a time of political unrest in England. Both lead characters do an interesting job in shielding their secrets. Charles' dilemma is particularly moving, especially because he has a six-year-old son whom Hollie is teaching to read.... Vibrant and well done!

Rating:
Summary: Good storyline, hard to not skim...
Review: Hmmm... well, mixed feelings about this one. I can say that I liked the storyline... very original. I liked both leading characters; they were likable, strong, and had integrity; I also enjoyed the way they actually communicated with each other - which is often not the case in romance books & that can really iritate me. Also, this was a book in which you actually saw the reasons that the lead characters fell in love with each other - NOT one of those where lust seemed to be the only reason. The secondary characters & side story really added quite a bit to the whole - I always appreciate that in a romance book. I would have liked to have known how the Earl handled that last meeting that they were headed into when the story ended... I thought that was dropped too abruptly. The Earl's secret made him very personable for me & really pulled at my heart-strings sometimes; However, I was extremely disappointed that we didn't learn anything about what the problem was a result of or how Hollie was going to help him overcome it.... I really wanted more info there.
My main problem with this book was that it was way, way too wordy (is that a word??? lol). I did a whole lot of skimming just to get to the point several times through out the book & often skimmed over what they were thinking of each other (again & again & again). That's never entertaining to me. Also, I had a problem with a few situations where the social customs (her presence in his home unchaparoned & them calling each other by first names) & even legalities of that time period were completely ignored (The Earl naming his heir).... that made it quite unbelievable.
I have read Linda Needham books before that I didn't want to skim over anything at all.... I was awfully disappointed in this one for that very reason. If it hadn't been for that, I would have definitely given this one 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Good storyline, hard to not skim...
Review: Hmmm... well, mixed feelings about this one. I can say that I liked the storyline... very original. I liked both leading characters; they were likable, strong, and had integrity; I also enjoyed the way they actually communicated with each other - which is often not the case in romance books & that can really iritate me. Also, this was a book in which you actually saw the reasons that the lead characters fell in love with each other - NOT one of those where lust seemed to be the only reason. The secondary characters & side story really added quite a bit to the whole - I always appreciate that in a romance book. I would have liked to have known how the Earl handled that last meeting that they were headed into when the story ended... I thought that was dropped too abruptly. The Earl's secret made him very personable for me & really pulled at my heart-strings sometimes; However, I was extremely disappointed that we didn't learn anything about what the problem was a result of or how Hollie was going to help him overcome it.... I really wanted more info there.
My main problem with this book was that it was way, way too wordy (is that a word??? lol). I did a whole lot of skimming just to get to the point several times through out the book & often skimmed over what they were thinking of each other (again & again & again). That's never entertaining to me. Also, I had a problem with a few situations where the social customs (her presence in his home unchaparoned & them calling each other by first names) & even legalities of that time period were completely ignored (The Earl naming his heir).... that made it quite unbelievable.
I have read Linda Needham books before that I didn't want to skim over anything at all.... I was awfully disappointed in this one for that very reason. If it hadn't been for that, I would have definitely given this one 4 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Most Enjoyable!
Review: I read to be entertained. This story held me, I couldn't put it down. Sure it wasn't realistic for the times, but who cares, it was well written. You couldn't help but really like and care about Hollie and Charles. The sexual tension between them was so well depicted and when they finally made love, WOW! Ms. Needham writes for a mature reader (not a teenager), and I thank her for that. The communication between Hollie and Charles, the side characters, the side issues (such as he can't read and he has an illigetimate son that he learns to love) all show what a talented author Needham is. This is the 4th book I have read of hers and I give them all 5 stars. I love the sensuality in her stories. I am a college graduate, career woman, and in my late fifties. You can trust me when I recommend an author. Needham is excellent!

Rating:
Summary: Breaking the Pattern
Review: I'm not a specialist on that period in history so I won't comment on the other reviews offered here. However, I have read all of Linda Needham's Avon books and this was a change from her previous soundly-derived plots. The hero was not as dark and brooding; yes, he had a secret but the author's treatment was much lighter. And finally a heroine who did not gather every rejected unfortunate under her wing. The illegitimate son filled this role, but I have to wonder if the hero and heroine would have had any emotional bond without him there. The ending fell short with the hero declaring his intention to change but we didn't get the satisfaction of seeing it happen. And where did the heroine grow? She stayed the same character from beginning to end, no change, no improvement. How did this love make her a better person? In short, I miss the well-thought-out, deliciously written relationships of Ms Needham's previous books.

Rating:
Summary: An exciting Regency romance
Review: In 1819, Earl Charles Stirling heads up the official investigation into the recent Manchester riots. He is stunned when his agents bring in a woman claiming she is the notorious printer of seditious material, Captain Spindleshinks. Holly Finch claims Spindleshinks is her new husband. Charles keeps Holly prisoner in anticipation that Spindleshinks will try to free his wife. Charles relents and agrees to allow Holly to keep printing so she can earn a living, having her press brought to his estate. She takes advantage of his aristocratic belief that a woman cannot run a shop because she is actually the printer Spindleshinks.

Holly claims the Home Office will sweep the truth under a rug, pass new laws, and condemn the rioters when she insists a massacre occurred instead. He disagrees, saying he will learn the truth. He realizes she was there and learns her father died there. As they debate things, they fall in love, but the social differences seem too great even for a powerful emotion like love.

MY WICKED EARL is an exciting Regency romance that equally describes the times as much as the romance. The story line centers on the relationship between the honest upper class Charles and the desperate middle class Holly, but does so in an intelligent manner so that readers can fully understand the era. As she has done in other historical novels (see the medieval tale THE MAIDEN BRIDE), Linda Needham writes a plot that will appeal to fans of historical fiction as well as romance readers.

Harriet Klausner

Rating:
Summary: A Middle Class Lass Clashes With An Arristocratic Earl
Review: MY WICKED EARL By Linda Needham Historical - Regency Period

Charles Stirling, the Earl of Everingham, is being hampered in his investigation of the Bloody Massacre at Peterloo by seditious and incendiary broadsides and speeches made by his nemesis, Captain Spindleshanks. He's finally located this troublemaker and sent his men to spring the trap and capture this captain. Expecting the tall, dark man often described, he's astonished when his doors are thrown open with a bang and the prisoner thrown in is a magnificent woman. Barefooted, wearing nothing more than a sheer nightgown and shackles on her wrists and ankles, Hollie Finch boldly faces the man most fear. She's captured and her broadsides and printing press are confiscated, but the quick thinking rebel fabricates a tale of an elusive husband who is the captain they are searching for. It's a lie that keeps her safe, but one that will come back to haunt her later.

Charles holds the lady as hostage, believing her husband will quickly come to her rescue. After all, how could he possibly stay away from such passion and beauty for long? Hollie quickly turns the tables, and it's more like Charles is the hostage. He can't stay away from her, using the excuse that he must watch her day and night so he doesn't miss the opportunity to catch her husband when he arrives. She has him so besotted he even installs her printing press for her. She continually spies, gathering information for the scathing broadsides she secretly produces right under his nose. Hollie's father was brutally murdered at Peterloo and she is determined to tell the world the truth of that blood bath.

MY WICKED EARL is a regency historical featuring a unique heroine. Unlike most women of her time, Holly is educated and clever, and has a forceful personality. She's a rebel in her own time, unwilling to bend before the upper classes of society. Linda Needham further introduces conflict as she develops a romance between a commoner of the middle class and an earl of high political standing. She finds a way for these two worlds to meet and learn about love, and does it with humor and sizzling sensuality. She adds secondary characters to build a bridge between the unlikely couple, and tells her story in such a way to make it believable. MY WICKED EARL is a book you will enjoy reading and one I recommend you add to your shopping list.

Carol Carter, Reviewer - As written for Romance Reviews Today

Rating:
Summary: A relationship drama that tugs on the heartstrings
Review: On August 16, 1819, sixty thousand men, women and children gathered in St. Peter's Field, Manchester (an orderly and unarmed crowd) to stage a peaceful protest -- only to have the English yeomanry charge across the field to wreak bloody havoc.

Hollie Finch lost her father that day, the victim to a brutal, unprovoked attack that cost nearly a dozen lives. Dubbed the "Peterloo massacre" in the days to follow, it also spurs forth the radical tendencies inherent in Hollie. An inquiry later initiated by the Home Office is hardly a glowing torch of truth, after all; blatantly slanted, it supports the actions of the yeomanry, and takes little account of the victims. Hence, Captain Spindleshanks is born, a notorious radical infamous for spreading "sedition" throughout the countryside. Her father's printing press provides Hollie with the perfect tool; unfortunately, she's now a wanted man, err, woman.

Clasped in shackles, Hollie is brought to the estate of Charles Stirling, Lord of Everingham (the magistrate assigned by the Home Office to oversee the Peterloo Commission). Charles is all too eager to bring Spindleshanks to justice; when his prisoner is brought forth, however, he's stunned into silence by a nightgown-clad angel (and utterly stymied by her passionate protests). Is she an accomplice? sister? daughter? to Spindleshanks -- or God forbid his wife or lover? Charles's stomach does a sick roil at the thought.

It's an instantaneous attraction for both Charles and Hollie; deliciously complex, their relationship is a reader's delight! A stronger, feistier heroine than Hollie is hard to come by. She's also sweet and sensitive and so damn beautiful she all but brings Charles to his knees; in want, in wonder...in a roiling sense of suspicion and guilt. In desperation, Hollie claims to be the wife of Spindleshanks (the bloody rotter!); Charles is therefore wrought with guilt at his incendiary attraction to a married woman. He's also in conflict over the boy brought to his estate recently; his son, apparently, but Charles's fathering skills are lacking, and dammit, he doesn't even know if he has it in him to try! Hollie is a revelation to him, however. She opens up his heart and let's the sunshine in. As the bait to lure Spindleshanks to trial, she's also an unending source of heartache, utterly and impossibly unattainable.

Tender and poignant, My Wicked Earl is a relationship drama that tugs on the heartstrings and makes a reader sigh wistfully, overcome by its sheer romanticism. I indulged in a night of marathon reading, charmed by the uniqueness of its plot and characters. Simply put, Ms. Needham has a rapturous talent for concocting the most original and divinely romantic tales; you can't help grinning like a love-struck teenager after finishing one of her novels.

Rating:
Summary: Breaking the Pattern
Review: Others have summarised the plot of this book, so I won't bore anyone who might read this with any further exposition of that. Probably what I most like about My Wicked Earl is the use of the Peterloo Massacre as a backdrop; it's often forgotten that eighteenth/nineteenth-century England, not long after the Industrial Revolution, was a very brutal period for working people. They had little or no rights, and even combining in trade unions to campaign for better pay and safer working conditions was a crime. Remember the Tolpuddle Martyrs, transported for joining a trade union?

However, the detailed use of this event and the sympathetic presentation of workers' protests isn't enough to make me love this book. Unfortunately, too much of it is simply incredible. First, as another reviewer mentioned, Hollie Finch *is* extremely unusual: she reads, writes and runs a print shop. Why? Needham needed to explain why this woman is so different from others of her generation. And, also, to explain why her reputation wasn't in doubt among those who knew her: an independent woman, living alone?

And as for her language - um, what's 'ballocks'? Do you mean 'bollocks'? - there is *no way* that a woman would have used such language. I kept waiting for Hollie to be dismissed as a trollop for the way she behaved.

Then, when she was taken to Everingham, the Earl's attitude is unbelievable. First, where were Everingham's servants? Only one manservant? There would have been footmen, below-stairs maids, above-stairs maids and many more. There would have been no need for Everingham to guard her himself. And why, when she told him that she was married, did he keep calling her Miss Finch? He would have called her by her 'married name' forthwith and continually. He would never have introduced her to his noble visitors, either - apart from anything else, they would immediately assume that the unmarried woman he introduced her as was his mistress. No maid? No chaperone? Couldn't be anything else. And, given the over-familiar way Everingham and Hollie behaved towards each other, wandering into each other's bedrooms and so forth, they acted as if she was his mistress.

And further on the subject of names, Everingham tells Hollie to call him Charles because calling him 'my lord' makes her sound like a servant. Rubbish! Apart from (male) social equals and superiors, and perhaps close friends, everyone would call him 'my lord'. That's simply the way it was.

Then there's 'Chip'. Everingham's son. What kind of name is 'Chip'? It may be an American diminutive of Charles, but it's not an English variation. Unless the boy was brought up in the US - and unless 'Chip' was used in the 1810s - that name is unbelievable. Even more unbelievable is Everingham making the child his heir. The boy was illegitimate: that's simply not legally or socially possible. What he might have done was acknowledge the boy - though he wouldn't have brought him up himself. And he would have paid for his education and perhaps helped him to get a start in a good profession. But that would have been all.

Nice backdrop, Needham, but *please* get the period manners and social customs right! I can't take a book seriously in which the author doesn't appear to care about the period she's writing in, and I won't be reading any more by this writer.