C2’s review of Vexing the Viscount by Emily Bryan
Historical romance released by Leisure 24 Feb 09
This review is going to be a bit different, gentle readers. I’ve had this book for the longest time and kept getting distracted. Real Life sometimes interrupts my reading schedule, don’t you know. Anyway, I try to keep notes when I’m reading a book for review, so I can keep things straight in my head when it’s time to do the write-up.
When I actually sat down to do start my review, my notes amused me so much I thought I’d post them rather than doing a more formal review. So, yes, you’re about to get a glimpse into my brain – a very scary place, some might say. 😉 Here we go:
Georgian setting – unusual nowadays.
First meeting over an antique oil lamp shaped like a penis.
Tassels=phallic symbol? I had no idea.
Childhood Iggy has turned into reclusive rake and wastrel Lucian.
Would she have really been on the shelf at 21, I wonder?
An outspoken young lady – gentlemen don’t like that, you know.
A reader of naughty books…shame on her. 😉
Egad, a group of sisters with flower names.
A lost Roman treasure.
A masquerade ball and a courtesan costume.
Yikes – intimate waxing!
Yikes again – he’s a virgin!
Oh, I forgot he’s young too – mid-20s. Still – VIRGIN!! 😈
She (the in-disguise her) agrees to give him a kissing lesson if he shows her some of his antiquities.
Subplot involves the second Jacobite uprising. Why??
His father hates her family so she uses a fake name while working with him.
Whoa! Flashback to Romans in England. Unexpected.
Flashback has 30 year-old male virgin!
Kissing lessons between her (in disguise) and him. That lead to strip poker (not really poker, of course).
Holy anachronisms! Chocolate candies in the Georgian era?! I don’t think so.
“She cupped his bag”?!?! Oh no she didn’t…OMG 😯
He gets cranky when he doesn’t get all the goodies the first time they make out. Typical. 🙄
Flashback with naked moonlight dancing. Wheee!
Back with our couple. Ooh, he briefly sees a resemblance.
A convenient antiquities expert appears.
The father is prone to destructive, drunken rages. Lucian suspects he’s on the brink of madness.
Lucian’s suspicions deepen that Blanche and Daisy are the same person.
A second lesson in love is arranged. And a blindfold comes into play, an ankle is sprained and a realization is made.
Dark flashback. Necessary?? I’m thinking no.
A conspiracy is afoot. Just call me Holmes…Sherlock Holmes. Jeez.
Clues are uncovered.
The aunt is a beard for her hubby. Carry-over from an earlier book, I’m guessing.
The plotting Jacobites want the Roman treasure to fund their cause and try to hook Lucian’s father into helping them. *sigh*
The aunt’s husband overhears the plotters and refuses to let Daisy see Lucian.
Another masked ball is just the ticket, then, isn’t it? But this time he recognizes her and says so.
A painting on a ceiling gives them another clue. How did they spot the painting? Hmm, I wonder.
Why won’t he tell her about the Jacobite plot? Oh yeah, because it’s silly.
And because he didn’t tell her, she steps right into problems. Of course.
And when he finds out, he is angry. Of course. But he doesn’t tell her of the connection to his father so she thinks he is excluding her. *sigh*
They go in search of the treasure…with the bad guys lurking behind them.
In the meantime, her uncle from Cornwall arrives. Her family figures out Daisy isn’t where she’s supposed to be.
While the family looks for Daisy, she and Lucian look for the treasure. On a haunted island! Woooo-oooooo-oooo. *eerie wailing sounds*
Gratuitous tavern brawl/sword fight. But, it provided a way to get him into her room and for nature to take its course. After he finally tells her the truth about the Jacobites and his father.
On the island they untangle the poem. But they’re being watched.
Finally, they find the treasure…but it isn’t what they expected. And their enemies get their comeuppance.
And that’s not all – Lucian gets a new title for helping dispatch the traitors.
My final thoughts on Vexing the Viscount are that it is a light (mostly) read and a nice change of pace for those who might be tiring of the Regency era. While it wasn’t a perfect book, it was entertaining. The main characters were engaging and amusing and the plot involving the treasure was interesting enough to stand on its own.
Grade: C+
Summary:
Daisy Drake is leading a double life! By day, she’s Lucian Beaumont’s unwanted assistant and by night, she masquerades as the masked courtesan, Blanche La Tour, a Frenchwoman who agreed to give Lucian lessons in sensual love!
There’s only one problem. Daisy speaks fluent French and can read ancient Latin without moving her lips, but she doesn’t know the first thing about the pleasures of the flesh!
Good thing she has the real Blanch La Tour’s very explicit memoirs for guidance.
Lucian Beaumont, Viscount Rutland, longs to see his family’s standing returned to its glory days, before his father lost their fortune. And he thinks he can manage it, if he can only discover the hiding place of an ancient Roman payroll.
Daisy never forgot her girlhood fascination with Lucian, even though his father has a score to settle with her uncle. Now that they’re all grown up, she’s determined to help the viscount find his Roman treasure.
Whether he wants her help or not!
Read an excerpt HERE.
Other related books:
C2, making notes like that doesn’t disrupt your reading at all? Seems like it would pull you out of the story so you don’t enjoy a book as much. No?
Sandy: I’ve been known to take notes, but usually only do so when there’s a lot of stuff in the book annoying the crap out of me. Or I might make a note of a page number if there’s a particular passage I want to quote in my review. I don’t find it distracting to take notes, but I also don’t do it all the time.
C2: This sounds mildly tempting because I adore virgin heroes – but there’s some other stuff here I think might annoy me. And yes, in Georgian times, 21 for a woman is most definitely on the shelf.
Wendy: I makes notes of about the annoying bits too. I can actually concentrate better if I “vent” about by making snarky notes when things aren’t going well.
Sandy (and Wendy and Lori) – I don’t do notes for every book but I kept getting interrupted on this one and there were things I wanted to check later – like the tassels as phallic symbols. Still haven’t checked that, though. Hmm. Anyway, it really didn’t pull me out of the book too much. It could be that I was hopped up on sugar when I started the notes and then I amused myself enough to keep going. 😀
Wendy – he wasn’t quite the typical virgin. Or maybe he just caught on quickly? He was too poor to afford a mistress and didn’t want to abuse the servants.
And thank you to the emoticon fairy. Heh.
By the way, the chocolate anachronism is a pet peeve. Grrr.
That must be gwen cuz I don’t even know how to do that…
I am sort of thinking this book is not for anyone looking for a ‘serious’ historical but really there isn’t anything wrong with that as Sandy would be one of the first to tell you.
Many readers just want to get lost in a book… so, this would fit the bill, or that is what I see in this review. It sounds cute and like it would annoy the ever loving hell out of me. So YAY for C2 reviewing it.
And you enjoy it Sandy ;). I do like the covers.
Yup, if you don’t look too deep or if you read fast (which I used to think I did but, after comparing myself to many cyber friends, now realize I do not), you’ll enjoy this book muchly.
Not that it wasn’t good. It just could have been so much better with a few small tweaks (goodbye Jacobites, for example).
He was too poor to afford a mistress and didn’t want to abuse the servants.
Ha! I love this sentence more than I can tell you.
I tried to look up the tassels = phallic symbols thing. My Google-fu is fairly weak this late at night, but there are a couple articles listed that seem to confirm that those dangling tassels are indeed a reminder of other dangling things. Unfortunately I can’t get the whole scoop because my university doesn’t subscribe to access for either of the journals.
LoriK – yay, you! The tassel thing was true…wow, am I going to pay more attention the next time I’m looking at draperies. 😀
I actually really enjoyed this one. It was very silly, but with an opening scene of them meeting over a phallic shaped lamp, I was pretty much expecting a screwball Regency (Georgian, really, but it doesn’t sound as much fun).
I was a bit disappointed that the whole virgin hero thing didn’t result in a little more awkwardness…