Helpful Score: 2
A decent and ultimately satisfying wrap to EJ's Desperate Duchesses series, but like the rest of this series (& everything James in general) I found it a little windy. I appreciate the rich detail and strong sense of time & place that EJ puts into her stories, but there are times when I feel like she's talking over my head. IMO, it's tedious to have to stop & think about every subtle nuance of character dialogue and interaction, especially when she's going to rehash all of it two or three pages later through an internal monologue anyway.
As I generally find to be the case with most everything James writes, there's a little too much "richness" for my personal taste. There are times when I like to try some decadent chocolate variety of cheesecake, but there are also times when plain old cheesecake can be quite sinful enough:P In other words, I think her romances get knocked slightly off center stage by just a little too much detail in setting, costume and secondary characters. James can't seem to write a story that doesn't go off into raptures over the details in a dress or frock coat, or the subtleties of hair powdering, and just how much is too much - and in every character's POV, at that.
I also couldn't help but feel that she rewrote Villiers, to a certain extent. He's a well-established character by this point in the series, a bit of a dandy, but he's a dandy with teeth; probably one of the most intelligent & observant characters she has written to date.
EJ, for reasons apparently known only to her, has seen fit to shave off a few of his by now legendary IQ points and turn him into just another nitwit male who couldn't find his own hiney with both hands and a flashlight.
I suppose it's true enough that it's easier for most men to see the little character flaws in a friend's prospective mate than it is to see them in a woman they are considering marrying, but I really feel like he should have been just a little swifter on the uptake here. He shilly-shallies well into the 11th hour, and has to literally have his face rubbed in the evidence. Not only did I find that out of character for Leopold, it was a bit unromantic, and didn't do much service to the heroine either.
Ultimately though, I did enjoy the story overall. The ending makes up for a lot and the love scenes are steamy. I just wish that James would find her own niche and stop channeling Jane Austen:P She can write a good book without the need to echo the greats of yesteryear, and IMO, the chatty/wordy/windy story is a thing of the past and really ought to remain there. I gave it a B-.
Sensuality Rating: R
As I generally find to be the case with most everything James writes, there's a little too much "richness" for my personal taste. There are times when I like to try some decadent chocolate variety of cheesecake, but there are also times when plain old cheesecake can be quite sinful enough:P In other words, I think her romances get knocked slightly off center stage by just a little too much detail in setting, costume and secondary characters. James can't seem to write a story that doesn't go off into raptures over the details in a dress or frock coat, or the subtleties of hair powdering, and just how much is too much - and in every character's POV, at that.
I also couldn't help but feel that she rewrote Villiers, to a certain extent. He's a well-established character by this point in the series, a bit of a dandy, but he's a dandy with teeth; probably one of the most intelligent & observant characters she has written to date.
EJ, for reasons apparently known only to her, has seen fit to shave off a few of his by now legendary IQ points and turn him into just another nitwit male who couldn't find his own hiney with both hands and a flashlight.
I suppose it's true enough that it's easier for most men to see the little character flaws in a friend's prospective mate than it is to see them in a woman they are considering marrying, but I really feel like he should have been just a little swifter on the uptake here. He shilly-shallies well into the 11th hour, and has to literally have his face rubbed in the evidence. Not only did I find that out of character for Leopold, it was a bit unromantic, and didn't do much service to the heroine either.
Ultimately though, I did enjoy the story overall. The ending makes up for a lot and the love scenes are steamy. I just wish that James would find her own niche and stop channeling Jane Austen:P She can write a good book without the need to echo the greats of yesteryear, and IMO, the chatty/wordy/windy story is a thing of the past and really ought to remain there. I gave it a B-.
Sensuality Rating: R
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