2026 book recommendations that have not ended well for me.
I enjoy several historical romance authors' Facebook pages, so when a few of them plugged upcoming books at the beginning of the summer, I put holds on them through Libby.
Virginia Heath's {Pride Comes Before a Fall}
Rachel Griffith's {Just for the Season}
Alexandra Vasti's {Scandal of the Summer}
Heath's came up first. Pretty quickly I came to understand what you guys have been talking about when you describe the current trend of "wallpaper" historicals.
It was clear the author knows her early 19th century history, butttttt, the story I read within it made zero sense to me.
I will mention but one problem: the heroine is hired by a Duke to be a chaperone for his sisters (with no experience/references), and is given a place to live, but only has to be on the clock till 6 pm. WTF? Evenings free . . . fascinating.
The reason I won't go further into Heath's crimes against HR is that it's been a couple of weeks now, and I am trying to forget the experience of my one and only novel of hers.
What I am currently feeling is feelings about the Griffiths novel, which blessedly passed into the past last night, praise the heavens.
There are SO many things going on in front of Griffiths' okay wallpaper that I found insulting to HR that I could stay up till dawn listing them.
But--here are just a few fun things that have left my brow furrowed, and I fear it may be frozen this way for good.
Our heroine is what, in her mid 20s? I think it's said she's been out 5 seasons. Sooo, she owns her own silk mill--run entirely by women--and designs all the fabric herself. Also, one of the heroine's suitors is a jeweler (and a member of the aristocracy). Work folk with titles? Hmph.
Our heroine's Gran is chummy-chummy with The Queen (damn you Shonda Rhimes) This role model also tells all the girls at a house party that if any man offers them jewelry, they should accept it whether the guy has intentions toward them or not. Gran also seems to have schooled our heroine about what the average size of a penis should be.
The let's-bash-our-reader-over-the-head-with-the -unfairness-of-the-patriarchy-at-every-turn rhetoric got old very fast, as well as our heroine repeatedly telling her Duke "no" whenever they began kissing just to show us how fast he backs away. Ahh, but when the lady finally wants the duke to give it to her good, because by now he's a little gun shy, she tells him to spill on her stomach like her courtesan friends from Covent Garden told her a man should do. I guess a lot went on in the first book of this series . . . .
Then there were the stylistic choices the author made. I can sort of tolerate it when an author has their character thinking naughty thoughts, and just when they are about to say something like penis, someone walks in the room and sends the thought in a whole other direction, but this gag was used ad-nauseum. I think the fracking book ended on one of these interruptions even. It wasn't cute the first time, or the 20th.
This brings me to my ultimate beef with the author's rhetorical choices. I did not enjoy that the Duke's favorite word was >!fuck!<. I don't know, he says it or thinks it, 50 or so times. I have been confused about >!fucks!< in historical romance settings ever since one scene in the show version of Outlander when Jamie asks Claire what this word is that she likes to shout out all the time.
My mom taught creative writing, and she always told her students to be judicious with expletives because over use robs them of the power to get the reader's attention. I mean, this was the 80s, so a well placed >!fuck!< might have meant something bigger back then. I still think there should be a good reason for it's placement in fiction now.
Simultaneously with this book, I was reading the Maiden Lane with Asa Makepeace, and he used foul language, but he wasn't a Duke. He owned a pleasure garden . . . It fit him.
This Duke--I just ended up wanting to tell him to go park his potty mouth out in the stables, like I tell kids to do (only with the bicycles) when I am in a classroom with them.
Anyway, I have the Vasti book ready to go, but I am kind of gun-shy like the poor >!fuck!<-loving duke in the story.
Also, the Sarah MacLean blurb for the Griffiths book seemed really strange to me before I pushed play on the audio. Now I guess it means she disagrees about the Duke's favorite word--I guess for some it's a "delight."