Lady Scoundrels' Saturday: The Raven Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt

Today is the last part of Lady Scoundrels review: The Raven Prince. Next week we will be back with a new book. Stay tuned for that.

Part 1 Scorn 

Part 2 Sense

And today it's my turn, Sensitivity *coughs*

I was unsure about the grade but I am just gonna go all bitchy on this book. Truth be told, I sat there reading and nitpicking and never truly connected. Did it make me want to read more by this author...no. Would it make me pick up more books by her if I found them at the library, no, and that really means it should get a 2. Which is still of course an ok grade. Cos it was not all bad.

So many things irritated me with this book. The first time Anna sees and hears Edward she thinks of one thing..is that how his voice sounds when making love? Honestly? Wtf, someone needs to get laid and fast. I doubt a prim 18th century widow would think that.

Then she becomes his secretary, again, wtf is this? She is a woman! Then she dines and rides with him. Oh girl, do not talk about that your reputation might take a hit, everyone, I mean everyone would already think you are his mistress. And if they are not then something is seriously wrong with that village.

The sexual tension continues *yawns*. She is also not repulsed by his scars cos he is pretty on the inside or whatever. Really? I found him to be quite the ass in the beginning. Also how they sparred at once. No no, that is not proper etiquette. You are obviously a loose woman. Why he keeps thinking of you are a virtuous saint I do not know.

To the brothels! Yes she finds a note and begins to think why men gets to smex around but women don't. Hello, because that is the era you live in. Do not go all modern on me or I will kick your ass. Anyway, what does our prim heroine do, yes she talks to a whore for 2 minutes and decides to go to a brothel and have sex with Edward. What? When did this happen? I am totally lost by this plot. WHY on earth would you do that? Just lift your skirts to him in the library and have at it. Yes he would not think you all prim and proper afterwards but at least you would get laid. Pretending to be someone else behind a mask at a brothel is something that does not go through my head. You also put yourself up to be raped by strangers, sold, killed, where is your head?

Of course he later finds out, duh, so we could totally have been spared the stupid brothel story, oh and I must also mention that he has a magic penis. A very magical penis that cures every womb.

Let's see, anything else I can snark at....I actually liked that she took pity on the prostitute, that I liked.

Oh the villains. Do not even get me started, another stupid plot that made no sense. Someone making a big deal of nothing. I could have been spared that too, it was just embarrassing and I wanted to hide behind my book.

Last, I am sure all these things could have been forgiven one way or another but at the end I realized that I suffered through the book and never connected. Why would I connect to the prim widow who just thinks about sex. Or the earl who goes on and on about how ugly he is and lusts after his secretary. An easy way to fix that, try to seduce her, if that fails, pay her off. I did not feel the chemistry, I did not get why she liked him, or he her, as she was so plain and that he says a lot. But hey she was outspoken, he must like a challenge.

I fear that yes I like HR, but HR does not like me back. I keep trying and I am sure everyone thinks I love HR to pieces, but I don't. It seldom impresses me. I enjoy it, it's a good genre, good escapism in it's silliness. But great, no, not that often. Really seldom really.

Would I recommend it..no not really.

Cover Snark:

So that is the ugly guy..yeah, sorry can't see it. Then I do prefer this other cover:

Lady Scoundrels' Saturday: The Raven Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt

Part 1. Scorn reviews The Raven Prince

And today it's time for part 2 of The Lady Scoundrels review The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt!

The floor is yours Sense

It’s been almost two weeks since I read this book and the overwhelming joy I felt then has since dissipated. The four stars I gave to The Raven Prince doesn’t seem as appropriate now as it did before. If I were working with half stars, I might adjust my rating, but as I am not, I’ll stick with what I chose.

Because as clichéd as the story was, it was entertaining enough to set it apart from all the three star meh books I’ve read. 

I’ve come to expect some level of anachronism from modern historical romances. These books are written for a modern audience and there are things that couldn’t be thought of let alone written two or three hundred years ago that are expected in literature of today. As Scorn pointed out last week, it can be jarring, but if you’re prepared with a hefty dose the patented Suspended Disbelief magic powder you should be just fine. I was. 

It didn’t bother me that a widow was working as a secretary for an earl in 1760. It didn’t bother me that said widow chose to further risk her reputation by caring for a sick whore. Neither did it bother me that the same virtuous and overly gentle-hearted widow chose to travel to London and pretend to be a courtesan just to have sex with the pre-mentioned earl. No, that part I actually liked, because I’m a well known fantasy fan, and because I had this feeling of a déjà vu. I can’t be absolutely certain but I think I’ve read those exact sex scenes before. Perhaps in Finnish in a book I “borrowed” from my mother.

Because the powder was working it’s magic I could sit back and enjoy the delightfully rounded characterisations for the main characters and the people around them. There was a sense of who they were, where they came from and why they chose the futures they chose, even if—predictably—the villainess of the situation was left with a little less attention than she deserved.

I liked that Anna Wren, the widow, was a headstrong feminist around the time blue stockings were only becoming a fashion. I liked that Edward de Raaf, the Earl, had real hopes and dreams he ultimately, and painfully, relinquished for something he wanted even more. I also liked he wasn’t one of the stupid heroes who needed to be hit with a sledgehammer in the head to realise the obvious truth. 

“Would you prefer swive? Tup? Dance the buttock jig?”

Also, I have to echo Scorn’s spoilery remarks about the ending: <spoiler>I saw that a magic-cock-cures-all deus ex machina was coming around the time Felicity started thinking about her red headed child. For me, the only acceptable reason for Anna’s childlessness should have been her husband’s sterility. I’m aware that this happens in real life, that women who aren’t able to conceive with one man do with another, but this particular plot twist has been abused in romances and I would like to see it stop.</spoiler>

To summarise: The Raven Prince fairytale was the best part of the book. Although there was too much sex, it was entertaining and I liked it. Slow start. 

4 stars

Series: Princes Trilogy #1

Pages: 392 (paperback)

Publisher: Warner Forever

ISBN: 0446618470

Published: November 1st 2006

Source: Anachronist

Lady Scoundrel Saturday: The Raven Prince - Elizabeth Hoyt

Scorn, Sense and Sensitivity

reviews

The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt

The Lady Scoundrels are back and over the next 3 Saturdays we will bring you our reviews of The Raven Prince by Elizabeth Hoyt.

First up is Scorn (aka Anachronist)

Book info:

Genre: historical romance but I would drop the historical part

Target audience: adults

Form: e-book, pdf format

Synopsis: 

The Raven Prince takes place in eighteenth century England. 

Edward de Raaf, the temperamental Earl of Swartingham, nearly runs over Anna Wren, a relatively young widow returning from the market. Shortly after that, Edward finds himself in need of a new secretary. The last few secretaries have all fled the earl’s employ in the face of his appalling temper and since he doesn’t give his steward, Mr. Hopple, much time to come up with one, Hopple hires Anna. It is unconventional, to say the least, to have a female secretary but Anna has a fair hand and is not intimidated by Edward, so the job is hers. By the way she is desperate to keep her position - the investments that the late Peter Wren left to his wife and by extension, his mother, are not doing very well. 

It doesn’t take long for a sexual attraction to emerge between Edward and Anna as they spend time together. All of Edward’s family died of smallpox when he was a child, and he lost his first wife in childbirth, so starting a new family is important to him. Still Anna is infertile and she belongs to lower class, so he feels he can’t marry her, and he goes to London to propose marriage to a more appropriate young lady with a significant dowry. While in London, he also plans to visit Aphrodite’s Grotto, a luxury house of ill repute. 

A bit earlier Anna discovers a bill from Aphrodite’s Grotto, and she realizes Edward is a customer there. Soon afterwards she finds a sick prostitute lying in a ditch and takes her home to nurse. The girl, called Pearl, asks Anna to contact her demimondaine sister, Coral, who is living and working in London. Pearl and Coral help Anna to gain access to the said whorehouse wearing a mask and become secretly the lover of Edward. Still will it help solving other problems of Anna or will it make her situation even more complicated?

What I liked: 

Never judge a book by what is written on the insert or at the back of the cover. Frankly the blurb of this one reads like some idiotic erotic romance book that publishers seem to think are so popular and profitable nowadays – a virginal heroine turns all of a sudden a skanky ass prostitute in order to sate her newly discovered passions and get her man. 

It is a romance book with an actual plot and its characters are interested in something more than just going to bed together. Both Anna and Edward seem real and are grounded in the reality, as constructed by the author. What’s more their physical appearances are relatively ordinary – Anna’s only good feature is her luscious mouth and Edward is a blunt, unpretentious farmer, not afraid to get dirty, with pox scars all over his face and body – his appearance is actually closer to ugliness and he is pretty much aware of it. It was a nice surprise after reading about all these beauties who charm everybody around them and have just one big problem: what colour emphasizes their beauty the best. 

The fairy tale of the raven prince, intertwined with the story, was lovely, and I enjoyed the way the bird theme was woven throughout the book, with Anna’s last name, the comparisons of Edward to a raven and the fact that the prostitutes were sometimes (but not in this book, pity) called ‘birds of paradise’ or ‘soiled doves’. Oh, and the sex scenes were hot – one of the best I’ve read so far. Indeed, I have no gripes at all with Anna and Edward’s erotic encounters, which were sensual and rich with sensory descriptions. 

I also liked the character of Coral, the successful demimondaine, and I regretted she didn’t play a more important role in the novel. Her cynicism really appealed to me and I hope that she makes further appearances in future books of this series – she clearly deserves that. 

What I didn’t like: 

The biggest issue for me was probably how wrong and anachronistic the book felt to me. It was supposed to be a historical romance but it is as far from any historical reality as it can only be. In fact it would be better if you forgot about the ‘historical’ adjective altogether, treating all these stays, tricorn hats, bustiers and wigs as merely theatrical props. First of all let me tell you that the characters, ALL the characters, speak and think using more or less modern language and 21st century way of thinking. When Anna finds out that Edward patronizes a brothel in London she is incensed by his hypocrisy – why should whores be anathema when the men who use them remain perfectly respectable? Very well, my lady, I agree with you on principle but it is definitely not a way of thinking for a respectable, church-attending 18th century female. 

Then, Hopple and Edward hired Anna as a secretary, at a time when only men were secretaries and woman’s place was only in the kitchen and in the nursery or cleaning rooms. I am pretty sure a lady in the 1760’s wouldn’t be able to take up such a post to a peer without causing huge ructions and a lot of condemning - I found this really difficult to swallow. 

I’m not saying that these words themselves are actually anachronistic. They may in fact have been in use in 1760. But the expressions comprised of those words sound contemporary to me, and that was enough to pull me out of the story. For example, Anna goes on about Edward’s attractiveness to her mother-in-law and I just couldn’t suspend disbelief that this conversation was taking place in 1760. There were other examples of speech that seemed contemporary to me. Edward says “Shit,–? in Anna’s presence. He also refers to another character as “that baboon”. There’s mention of a “crackpot theory”. Edward’s valet says to Anna, “Don’t have to be snotty”. I really wish the author did some research or change the settings of the novel. 

Finally the little London adventure of Anna…well, it was something few modern women would be brave enough to do; I really couldn’t believe she, a respectable widow, decided to play a prostitute just to get the attention of Edward. When he found out her ruse he was surprised but not outraged. Are we really talking about times when a single woman, widow or otherwise, couldn’t talk to a gentleman face to face without a companion because she risked tarnishing her reputation? Edward was really strangely unconcerned by the resourcefulness of his beloved although before he had expressed his worry that she took a whore to her house. 

Now the ending…it was as if a nasty witch sneaked inside the novel and changed it from a reasonably good story into something unbearably naïve and inane because otherwise it wouldn’t be a romance. Spoiler - highlight to read or skip: although Anna was pretty much sure she was barren, all of a sudden we find her with a son and pregnant again, her husband on cloud nine. It seems the moment you find the right man you get cured from whatever ails you and you can have children if you wish so, right? WRONG. 

Final verdict: 

As far as romance book goes this one wasn’t bad – I really appreciated some fresh ideas and the fact that its characters were closer to real people. You can enjoy it providing you treat the whole historical set in a very liberal way and you don’t mind those cloying HEA endings