Wendy the Super Librarian‘s Duckies Do Series review of The Accidental Series by Michelle Willingham
Historical romances released by Harlequin Historical Feb – Mar 2010
I’ve spent all of 2010 being perpetually behind in my reading. It’s gotten to the point where I literally have whole series waiting for me to read. Depressing, to be sure, but the upshot is that I can do one of these cool Duckies Do Series posts! I hope to do at least one more of these in the near future (When? Uh, go back to top and reread first sentence of this paragraph again), but for now let’s start with the series I’ve been neglecting the longest – Michelle Willingham’s first foray outside of the medieval time period.
The Accidental Countess
1 Feb 10
Stephen Chesterfield, the Earl of Whitmore, wakes up in his bed at his country estate to discover an angry knife wound on his chest, a mysterious tattoo on the back of his neck, and Miss Emily Barrow nursing him back to health. They were childhood playmates, and sweethearts, until his father put a stop to it and her family fell into scandal. Stephen remembers a great many things, just not the last several months of his life. Which means he has no memory of who tried to kill him and no memory at all of marrying Emily.
What we have here is a pretty compelling mystery, and a deft handling of the popular amnesia trope. What didn’t work quite as well for me was the romance. Emily has a definite Cinderella quality to her, but after the umpteenth person treated her like crap, I wanted her to man-up and grow a pair already. In turn, Stephen, in the name of protecting Emily from the bad guys, uses that as an excuse to treat her like crap, thereby giving the people snubbing her ammunition. Why he thought that would protect her is beyond me. What? Bad guys don’t hear society gossip? In the end it was the mystery of who was trying to kill Stephen, and why, that kept me flipping the pages. Having read the prequel to this story months before, I had the concept of the the romance. I just didn’t like it all that much in this full-length treatment.
Grade: C-
Summary:
When Stephen Chesterfield, the Earl of Whitmore, awakes to find a beautiful woman berating him, he knows he is in trouble! He cannot recall the past three months of his life, never mind having a wife! What’s more, someone is trying to silence him before his memory returns….
Emily Chesterfield is trapped in a marriage of convenience with a man who doesn’t remember her. Stephen clearly thinks she is the most unsuitable countess, but she is falling for her enigmatic husband…. Can they find trust and love before it is too late?
The Accidental Princess
1 Mar 10
Lady Hannah Chesterfield’s entire life revolves around her landing a suitable husband, and Lieutenant Michael Thorpe is so far from suitable, he might as well be on another planet. But they can’t seem to stay away from each other, and when scandal erupts, Hannah finds herself traveling with Michael on a grand adventure. Could the man who was raised by a fishmonger, and who is a soldier in the British Army, really be a long-lost prince?
The author keeps up the fairytale theme of this series by putting the Cinderella glass slipper on the hero’s foot. Michael sets out on the trip just wanting answers, but when his life is threatened, his drive for those answers takes on more urgency. There’s also the small matter of Michael and Hannah being in love with each other – and either way the prince thing turns out, it doesn’t mean a match between them would be celebrated. As a solider, Michael isn’t “good enough” for Hannah, and as a prince, Hannah isn’t “good enough” for him. Also, there’s the small matter of Hannah being sick and tired of people controlling everything about her life – right down to what she eats and what she wears.
I liked that Hannah didn’t toss up her skirts the minute she got her head turned by Michael. She might not want to be controlled by her mother or society (good girls don’t…), but she also doesn’t disregard them outright. I liked that Michael was smart, brave, and honorable. Towards the end of the story I did feel these two were basically talking circles around what was really bothering them, and that did get a little tiresome (just come out and tell him/her already!), but the author sews it all up nicely, right down to Lady Hannah finding a voice all her own.
Grade = B
Summary:
Lieutenant Michael Thorpe is a forbidden temptation for Lady Hannah Chesterfield. Etiquette demands Hannah ignore the shivers of desire his wicked gaze provokes, but he’s the only man to recognize her restless spirit, and her unawakened body is clamoring for his touch….
Thrown together by scandal, a defiant Hannah joins Michael on an adventure to uncover the secret of his birth—is this common soldier really a prince? If so, will the ordinary man who has taught Hannah the meaning of pleasure now make her his royal bride?
While I’ve enjoyed many of Willingham’s medieval historicals, and I’d hate to see her abandon that time period altogether, I did enjoy this side trip to the Victorian era. Taking into account the B- I gave the Harlequin Historical Undone prequel I reviewed earlier this year? That leaves us with….
Overall Grade: B-
Other titles in series:
