LynneC’s review of It Happened One Season by Stephanie Laurens, Mary Balogh, Jacquie D’Alessandro, Candice Hern
Historical Romance Anthology published by Avon 29 Mar 11

In this enjoyable anthology, the theme is second sons forced to marry because their older brothers have produced only girls. So our hapless heroes are dragged from their normal lives into the hurly-burly of the marriage mart.

It’s a nice concept, and there are some great authors here. None are new to me, but they are competent at least, immersive at best. So let’s get going.

In The Seduction of Sebastian Trantor, Stephanie Laurens treads the well-worn path. Strong alpha male pursues independent-minded woman. I’ve found that the wrong way to approach Laurens is to glom her, because her basic plot is always the same. However, she often adds delightful details to the characters, and she does that in this one. I like Sebastian. Like most of Laurens’ heroes, he doesn’t like fashionable society, and during one ball he hides out in the library, where he surprises a young woman, Tabitha Makepiece, who is looking for evidence of wrongdoing by their host. Forget that this would be completely wrong for society, where the rules of hospitality were regarded as little short of sacred, just go along with it. They agree to a false engagement, while they work together to bring the villain to justice. Well written, undemanding, and a great airplane read.

Grade: B

No excerpt available.

Only Love is a typical Mary Balogh, and none the worse for that. Cleo Pritchard decides she is on the shelf. She’s a widow with a marriage to a soulless soldier behind her, and she wants to experience passion, but is practical enough to realize that it might be impossible for her. She is older, and she’s considered plain by her family, so she’s used to thinking of herself in those terms.

Jack Gilchrist, under orders to find a bride and make an heir to his brother’s earldom, finds Cleo. They knew each other before, when Jack was in the army. Jack likes her. He decides she will do for him and he proposes. Cleo decides she will accept his offer if he will make her pregnant, because she doubts that she can get pregnant. There has been no sign of it in her previous marriage.

This is a delightful study of character set firmly in the early nineteenth century. It’s wonderful to read a story where you don’t have to worry about the author getting things wrong or spoiling the mood. Cleo and Jack are characters you can understand and who you want to know more about.

Grade: B+

Read an excerpt.

For me, Hope Springs Eternal by Jacquie D’Alessandro is the weakest story in the collection. The details aren’t as assured and there are a few anachronisms, not least the hero’s favorite curse of “Bloody hell,” which made me wince every time he uttered it. Sadly, he uttered it rather a lot. There were other words that didn’t fit well, for instance, “mantra,” a word that wasn’t in common currency then, but could maybe be known by a soldier. And the quotation from Pope, “Hope Springs Eternal.” Since it’s used as a sign of hope between the characters, I’m fairly sure Ms. D’Alessandro hasn’t read the original, Pope’s “Essay on Man,” an essay written in heroic couplets. Less a poem, more an essay on the uselessness of fighting against the superior and heartless nature. Penelope and Alec declare Pope to be their favorite poet, and it does seem strange to have such a cynical and brilliant denouncer of romantic love in a romance novel. It could have been interesting, but here just the famous quotation is used, not an exploration of the inevitability of nature over human will. It’s a kind of anti Neo-Platonism, to put it crudely. Anyway, on with the story.

The heroine, Penelope Markham, is an impoverished artist. The hero, Alec Trentwell, another hapless ex-soldier second son, asks her to do his family’s portraits, and brings her into the family house to do so. Extremely unlikely in the Regency world, unless she had already given up her reputation, but had she entered it as a guest of the countess, then it might have been better. So I mentally added that and carried on reading. Penelope keeps charcoal in her pocket, ready to sketch with when she needs it, and one of those sessions leads to a romantic encounter. They must have been pretty black and grubby by the time they finished.

They do marry a little earlier than the couples in the other stories, and they enjoy their sex lives. To some extent the story lost momentum here. While Penelope has an interesting character, albeit idealized, I never really felt that I understood or cared much about Alec or what attracted him to her.

Grade: C

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In Fate Strikes a Bargain by Candace Hern, Nathaniel Beckwith meets the heroine at a ball. They are both hiding behind an orange tree brought in for decoration. Nathaniel has been a brave soldier and has suffered – he is suffering from PTSD, although they wouldn’t have called it that then. But he has to marry and produce an heir for his brother’s title, so he’s inspecting the girls produced for his delectation. He doesn’t like it and he isn’t attracted to the girls.

Nat has a strong sense of duty, and he doesn’t expect to enjoy this. But he likes Philippa.

Philippa has a bad limp, almost a lurch, produced by a displaced hip at her birth. While she has a pleasant and understanding family, she yearns for a life of her own, and she wants them to stop fussing over her quite so much.

Nat will give that to her. He accepts her for what she is, nothing more, nothing less, and he is willing to give her the freedom she wants. Because she has a gammy leg, he doesn’t treat her as subhuman, different or anything except her.

The story of these two damaged people coming to understand and even love each other is probably my favorite of the book. I didn’t know if it would work at first, but it does. I became engrossed by them and I rooted for them to get their happy ending.

Grade: A

Read an excerpt.

Altogether, this is a solid read, one that I enjoyed. More, please. I think, adding up all the scores, that would give the book a B and I’d like to add a plus for the Hern and the Balogh.

Grade: B+

Summary:

We asked our readers what story they would most like to see from four bestselling authors. They responded . . .

A handsome hero returns from war, battle-scarred and world-weary. But family duty calls and he must find a bride.

A young lady facing yet another season without a suitor never expects to find herself the object of his affections.

It Happened One Season

Four amazing talents

Stephanie Laurens
Mary Balogh
Jacquie D’Alessandro
and
Candice Hern

have come together to create one of the most unforgettable events of the year. The results are spectacular—each story is as unique as a lover’s first kiss.