le sigh… someone may need to come take three books away from me so I stop rereading them.
Have you bought If His Kiss Is Wicked by Jo Goodman yet? Cuz you need too…
Emma pushed herself up on her elbows. “You invited me to join you when you went to a gaming hell. I don’t suppose you can appreciate how dear I hold that memory. Not only the adventure, Restell, but the invitation. To be asked to share that small enterprise with you, it was outside all my expectations, yet you proposed it casually, as if there were nothing the least improper or singular about it. You acted as if I were your equal.” Her voice became huskey whisper, “As if I were your friend.”
Emma sat up the rest of the way. Her face was close to his.
“It seemed irrelevant that I was your wife or even that I was a woman. You made it irrelevant to me.” Emma cupped his face, smiling sympathetically as Restell’s eyes darted to the compress at her side. “Have you need of it?”
“It depends,” he said. “On whether you think being a woman – and my wife – is irrelevant now.”
Love that! It so shows their relationship. I don’t really know where you would put Restell in the alpha beta lists. He is so very in control. Always clever, understanding and caring. But he is not on to allow himself to be walked on…. period.
He is so in my top 10 favorite heroes.
She was looking remarkably pretty, for one thing, and Restell knew his Achilles’ heel was a pretty woman, not a beautiful one. Although he could not precisely define the difference, he knew very well that one existed. Often a woman who was pretty at the outset became beautiful in his eyes, but the reverse had never happened. Pretty denoted a liveliness of affect that he had never found in strictly beautiful women. He appreciated the turn of the head that was prompted by curiosity, not vanity. The smile might be a shade too wide and was almost always a bit crooked in its presentation, but Restell was inevitably beguiled by its inherent honesty.
Sorry I will stop.
oh just one more!
Restell was compelled to point out, “We didn’t steal anything.”
“But we could have. Sneaksmen, I have heard them called. Really, it was quite exciting. You are very good to indulge me, Restell.”
“I would rather you were satisfied with a string of pearls or a diamond choker.”
“Then you should have proposed to Marisol.”
Hee! Sorry I just lurve her. I am just a sad sad fangrrl aren’t I?
So what are you going to be reading this holiday weekend? Other than If His Kiss is Wicked and Driven – of course.
I am still deciding and it is my most favoritestestest person in the world birthday on Monday. So that means I am not gonna get out of spending time with my family. What? I adore my mom and sister but I am working on becoming agoraphobiac. And really do you have any clue how many books I have to read. Oy not even counting the books to read for next year so I start on the guest author day schedule for 2008. I know, you feel really bad for me.
So hit me with your best shot! What cha reading? What have you just finished you lurved muchly? What is up next?
I just ordered this one, only I have to wait until a Sept 4 book is released before it comes *sob* (along with Driven). So maybe next week will be my reading week, sigh.
I just finished Caressed by Ice and The Serpent Prince. Both very, very, very good. I think my only quibble with The Serpent Prince was the heroine wasn’t quite as huge a character as Simon … I liked her character very much, and thought the romance was fantastic, but maybe I’m just more action-oriented and would have liked her to actually *act* a bit more there at the end.
But, really fantastic books, both of them.
I really want to read Madame’s Deception by Renee Bernard. I finished Drive, which does kick ass! 🙂
Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer was incredible (I am on team Jake)
But the one I am going crazy over drops on Sept 25th… hmmm which one can that be?
Of course there has been some clunkers out there also 🙁
OMG! I forgot I have Madame’s Deception, we won’t even talk about for how long I have had it. ::adds to list::
LOL I had thought about reading Meyer but I don’t see how I can slip it in to the TBR. And wasn’t Driven just the best!
What were your clunkers?
Poor meljean… so close but yet so far. You know. If His Kiss is Wicked is for sell at Walmart as well. 🙂
TSP… not sure. If she had ‘acted’ more, would Simon’s outcome had been the same? And if it was – would he have been in the same place at the end of the book? I think maybe… it was best he reach that point and get to the otherside by himself. They are not in a perfect place at the end – in a healthy emotional sense. But hands down, Simon is much more at peace with his actions, his brothers and all that come of it.
maybe… ::IwillnotrereadthisagainIwillnotrereadthisagainIwillnotrereadthisagainIwillnotrereadthisagain:: well at least not this weekend. I will be strong. Oh yes I will be.
If His Kiss is in the mail to me now, can’t wait to read it, but I do have Driven to read this week, in between cookouts and family birthday parties. Now if I only had Caressed by Ice and The Serpent Prince in Hand, I might have to leave those cookouts earlier, lol. At least I don’t have to wait to read Madeline Hunter’s upcoming release – what a great book!
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What’s funny is that I totally agree with this — he had to reach that place by himself … but it still left me with that slightly unsatisfied feeling as to her part in it. Like, even if she had gone to the butler to try to find him, I would have been more satisfied.
I can’t really explain it, except to say that although I was *feeling* what she was, at the same time a part of me was screaming at her to get off the floor and do something.
Okay, okay, I’ll buy it! Geesh! Besides, I get a bit senseless when it comes to those Nathan Kamp covers. I know you don’t agree with me, Sybil, but I don’t think there’s EVER been a better historical cover model. *sigh*
I grabbed up Renee Bernard’s Madame’s Deception the day it came out.
First though, I had to finish the Immortals series. Book 3, Immortals: The Awakening by Joy Nash, was sooooo freakin’ good and left me NEEDING book 4, Immortals: The Gathering by Jennifer Ashley, immediately! It took me 3 stores on Tuesday to find it– Walden’s and Border’s didn’t get it in on release day, but I found it at K-Mart as a Guaranteed Read! And OH WAS IT WORTH THE HUNT!! I am still amazed at how much I’ve enjoyed this series!
Btw, Sybil… TAG, you’re it! 😀
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this doesn’t really work does it… I should do like a TSP discussion post
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I LOVED the scene before she left, you know the one in the grass, where when it is done she is screaming and running to him and it is just sooooo… it just leaves you breathless. You are there and it is so vivid and just amazing, same thing with the hand print in blood on her white dress (the last time they see each other before they marry). So dunno… I wouldn’t want to see that again though so her rushing out there wouldn’t have worked for me.
But you are right maybe trying… in her mind though she went to the place he was most ‘connected and she did the thing she truly felt in her heart would help. As well as I think she was scared shitless. As long as you don’t know, there is still a chance it can be ok.
The very end, I thought that was perfect.
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Nah, I see that. And you know, it really is one of the best historicals I’ve read in a long time (have re-read it already) so even that niggle didn’t really bother me all that much. And I do think that feeling of “oh my god, get off the floor” really shows how much this book affected me … and was probably connected to that feeling of helplessness which she, as a character, was going through. Knowing that there was nothing except praying, pretty much, and hoping for the best … and being frustrated by there really not being anything else to do. I don’t know, maybe I’m still trying to work through that part, which is a good indication of how much I’m still thinking of it. Because, yeah — fantastic book. Simon is easily one of the best, most wonderfully complex characters to show up in a long, long time (and maybe some of that tiny bit of dissatisfaction comes from Lucy’s character arc not being quite so … dramatic? It’s more internal and quiet? I dunno.)
Maybe it’s that we see him pretty much broken, all hope gone, and we see him come (partially) back from it on his own (without her showing up in a magical, OMG I love you and it healz all wounds! way). But when she breaks, and pretty much all her hope is gone, he shows up and makes it all right. So it just feels somewhat unequal.
But I definitely wouldn’t have wanted her to rush out to the scene — it would have totally ruined the book for me. The earlier dueling scene you mention was perfect, and heart-wrenching, so having another of them would be wrong wrong wrong. And I was perfectly happy with the very, very end.
So, I’m not really complaining 😀 Just trying to figure out why that one part frustrated me so much. And it may very well be that my frustration is just an echo of Lucy’s, in which case it just means that it’s all perfectly pulled off on Hoyt’s part.
Is it bad I can’t get brit brit’s new song out of my mind? It is like running on repeat track in my mind.
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But when she breaks, and pretty much all her hope is gone, he shows up and makes it all right. So it just feels somewhat unequal.
Interesting point of view… I guess for me they are on such different levels. She isn’t fucked up. He is. Her issues are relationship issues and learning to grow up. She was use to people always doing as she wanted because it normally made sense. She is a sensible and smart woman. And really lets face it, she is Simon’s angel. So if he can – it is hers.
So I saw her confronting that with her father. Learning that all HEA don’t have goldens roads and you have to learn to find a middle. She knew what was going to happen, knew they would fight about it more and knew no matter the out come this was still the other half of her soul. She would rather be damned with him than without him.
So the knowing as she was on the floor she may never see him again. Could never gift him with something so simple that would have made him so happy – that she withheld for reasons she could no longer understand (so great it was the woman cuz it is always the man) was a powerful scene.
LOL so I saw it as they both had to kick a demon’s ass and then found their way back together.
🙂 but I can see your point as well
le sigh… wonderful book…
No, I see that, too. And, yes — wonderful book.
Can we hold hands and sing? *g*
Do you like brit brits new song too? eh really I can’t sing worth shit. Can we just hold hands?
Nah, I haven’t even heard it. It was just a general, “If I could teach the world to sing” moment. Instead of Coke, we’ll give this book.
(I can’t sing, either. It’s really, really, REALLY bad. Like a dying cat.)
I have it!! I have it!! Now if only The Serpent Prince would come out my book world would be a most happy place!
Oh I’m adding this Jo Goodman book to my wishlist. No throwing tomatoes but I haven’t read her yet, but would love to read this one!
Finishing up TOUCH OF A WOLF by Jennifer St. Giles. Then I want to read ONCE HE LOVES by Sara Bennett
Ahhh I adored the Jennifer St. Giles I read, which was the first in her gothic series I think. Judged it for a contest last year. I don’t think I have the new one. And have never heard of Once He Loves. Is that an older Bennett? Or not out yet?
As for goodman, YES you need it! LOL I just got four signed copies to give away ;). Just need to decide how I am gonna do that.
note to self move spoilers for TSP to a password TSP discussion post…