Too Many Matchmakers (Signet Regency Romance)

Rating:
Summary: Two arranged marriages materialize into three love matches!
Review: Diana's impassioned words of love frightened away a young Nicholas ten years ago, leaving her to marry an elderly neighbor and Nicholas to many years of debauchery and dissipation. She's now a wealthy widow and he has inherited a title and many responsibilities. Sparks still fly between them. What's to prevent a romance between them now?

Everything. First of all, Nicholas finds her more suitable to be a mistress than a wife. But Diana despises rakes and libertines, and could never succumb to a liaison outside of marriage. Diana has become the champion of a young neighbor who is being forced into an arranged marriage by her parents. Nicholas has taken upon himself the duty of finding a suitable match for one of his distant relatives. Through various diverse and equally unlikely events, both Nicholas and Diana become engaged to other parties, both completely unsuitable. It becomes very obvious that the only way to extricate everyone from these mismatches is through the threat of a scandal that would bring four sets of stubborn parents to their senses.

My biggest complaint with the book is the hero. The way he treated Diana ten years ago showed him to be a cad of the first order, and his sudden reformation at the end is simply not credible. Although he has supposedly straightened up his life in the last two years, he still indulges in incessant and scandalous raking, blaming it all on his attraction to Diana. It's only in the last 20+ pages that he can admit to himself that his behavior with her ten years ago was abominable and that she was not trying to entrap him into marriage at the time.

And Diana really nails him on it, too! Go girl! Finding myself enthusiasting cheering her on when she tears his character to shreds, I was exceedingly disappointed when she allowed herself to be convinced of his sincerity. I'm usually a sucker for happy endings, but this one was too saccharine even for me.

Rating:
Summary: One of her better books...
Review: I would actually give this 2 and a half stars, but since this is the best book of hers I have read so far...

What I liked most was the ending, which reminded me of the screwball comedies of the 1930s ("let's change partners!"). Woah! That gives it away, doesn't it. Fear no more, because I will only tell why I like the book.

First of all, the heroine is quite appealing, and probably the most appealing heroine of Lane's that I have come across. She is not too stupid to live, nor spoiled, nor excessively modern (even if her ideas about proclaiming her sentiments publicly are rather far-fetched).

Secondly, some of her previous characters (at least two sets of heroes and heroines) show up briefly in her novel. For example, the poet Thornton reveals his identity, and so does Merriweather. [See THE EARL'S REVENGE for Thornton and Merriweather's story]. There are links to other books here as well, for example THE IMPOVERISHED VISCOUNT which is a sequel for one of the minor characters in this book. I confess to being a sucker for half-way decent series, where minor characters in one book become major characters or the protagonists in others. If you like this kind of interlinking book series, you might want to read Allison Lane, and more particularly, this book.

Thirdly, although the hero frustrates me sometimes with his attitude (and his wish to made Lady Diana his mistress), he is overall a decent man. Consider for example, his attitude towards his responsibilities and his dependants, as well as the way he feels responsible for watching out for his cousin. [Now the fact that he can't see her worse qualities is definitely a problem, but he is not perfect].

Which brings me to my fourth point: in this book, we see all kinds of couples and marriages - from the happily married rakish and/or modern(Thornton and Merriweather) to the happily married but convention (the Parkers) to the priggish but happy together (a couple who come together in the book), to the unhappily married (the hero's parents) to the vast numbers of conventionally married noble couples with "separate" interests (George's parents). In that sense, this book is rather more developed than most of Allison Lane's books which tend to verge on the melodramatic. I would have liked to have seen a bit more explanation for the way some of the minor (and major) characters behave, notably Sophia's parents. I do like the fact that Lane hints at why George is so priggish, and why Nicholas behaves the way he does. While I don't feel that Lane develops her secondary characters as well as some other authors do, this is definitely a way to make her books more interesting. [For the record, I do not like cardboard stock characters, and am finding them less appealing as time wears on].

The story is a little less melodramatic, although the story about Diana's uncle hearkens back to that. [Oh my - cannot Lane have an ordinary uncle, for once? Just a mean, stingy uncle would be sufficient]. Diana and Nicholas were once in love, became estranged because of Nicholas's own foolishness. When he meets her years later as the widow of one of his elderly friends, he believes her barren and therefore ineligible to be his wife - although he wants her. She will not become his mistress, and she is championing a young girl chafing at her restrictions. The rest of the story is about how Diana helps this young girl (Chloe) escape from a planned marriage, and find happiness with the man she really loves; and how she finds happiness for herself. There is a slightly farcical ending, which is brought about because one suitor realizes almost too late that he has been mistaken in the fiancee he has accepted, and because the lady's parents are convinced believers in arranged marriages.

I have to admit that elements of this story were hard to believe, but on the whole the plot was far less contrived than the usual Lane plot. The style was not the best, but it did not detract significantly from my enjoyment of the story. [Honesty compels me to say that I read the story a favorable mood to begin with, which allowed me to overlook minor problems].

I won't go so far as to give this story four stars (which I have reserved for the better books I have read so far), but it deserves three stars. I should warn you that if you are a purist in terms of language, style, tone and general tenour, you might not like this book. Nor is this book filled with evil villains and stirring adventures. As I said, if you have a taste for 1930s movies (think Cary Grant, Irene Dunne, Hepburn and Tracy), you will probably enjoy this book.

Rating:
Summary: One of the worst regencies I've ever read
Review: The only reason I read this to the end was that I was (erroneously) certain that it would get better. Wooden, prosy characters; awkward plotting that doesn't flow to its natural conclusions; and bad writing that's interspersed every few paragraphs with exclamations in italics -- e.g., "Fools!" or "Idiots!" or "Sanctimonious prigs!" It's incredibly irritating. If you want a good regency, try Georgette Heyer or Marian Devon or Barbara Metzger.