Category: 4 Star

In New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Boyle’s fourth novel in the Rhymes With Love series, a resolute young woman goes toe-to-toe with the Beast of Mayfair…

She has no desire for love…

As she arrives in Mayfair, Louisa Tempest is horrified when her incorrigible cat bolts from the carriage and dashes into a neighbor’s house, where she comes face-to-face with the reclusive Viscount Wakefield. But even more dismaying than his foul temper is the disarray in which she finds his home. Convinced his demeanor would improve if his household were in order, Louisa resolves to put everything to rights.

…until she meets the viscount who lives down the lane.
Much to his chagrin, Wakefield finds it impossible to keep the meddling Louisa out of his home, invading his daily life with her “improvements,” and his nights with the tempting desires she sparks inside him. Wounded in the war, he’s scorned society ever since his return . . . until Louisa opens the door to his heart and convinces him to give love a second chance.

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London, Hanover Square

November 1810

“What is it, Haley?” Lord Charleton asked, sparing a glance at the door of the breakfast room where his secretary stood, hovering about like a nervous sparrow. “Is it Rowland? Tell me he hasn’t landed in the suds yet again.”

“No, my lord.”

The man’s brow furrowed a bit. “Couldn’t be Wakefield.”

“Certainly not, my lord.”

The baron glanced up. “Wouldn’t mind if it was. Demmed waste having him mope about, locked up in that house of his.”

“Indeed,” the secretary replied, and if Charleton wasn’t mistaken, there was a note of irony to the man’s declaration—one he chose to ignore, instead pinning a glance on the impudent fellow.

Under the scrutiny, Haley’s jaw worked back and forth as if the words were stuck there in his craw.

“Well?” Lord Charleton prodded. “Out with it. Before my kippers grow cold.” As it was, the baron shoved his plate forward and set down the paper he’d been reading.

Mr. Haley cleared his throat and held out a letter. “I’ve come across a small debt your wife owed—”

There it was. That cold stillness that came every time someone had the nerve to mention Isobel’s name.  How  Lord  Charleton  wished  he  could forget her passing so this wrenching pain would fade from his heart. Yet, still, even a year after her loss, it was a sharp ache he woke up with, one that haunted him even after he closed his eyes at night.

Now here was his secretary bringing her up when he’d quite forbidden the matter.

“Pay it,” he ordered in a tone that said he wanted nothing further to do with any reminders of her.

“But, my lord—” Haley shuffled about.

Lord Charleton removed his glasses and slowly cleaned them. Then once they were perched back up on his nose he stared coldly at the fellow. He was a good man, Haley. An excellent secretary, but why the man continued to bring up Lady Charleton, the baron could not understand. Speaking slowly and deliberately, so there was no mistaking the matter, he said, “You know what to do. Take care of the matter and leave me be.”

“If you insist, my lord . . .” Haley’s voice trailed off tentatively. It wasn’t so much a reply as one last prod.

Truly? He was going to ask yet again? If he wasn’t the most thorough and honest fellow the baron had ever hired—well, actually Lady Charleton had found him and insisted he be hired, but that wasn’t the point. Haley had become rather cheeky of late and Charleton wanted nothing more than to fire him on the spot.

But Isobel wouldn’t have approved, and so Charlton inclined his head, reined back his ire and said with a final note, “Just see to it as Her Lady- ship would have wanted.” Then he went back to his paper and ignored Haley, who stood for a few more moments in the doorway.

And if the baron had looked up, he might have seen the wry, wily smile that had led Lady Charleton to hire Mr. Haley in the first place.

CHAPTER 1

London
Six months later

Areowwwwww!  The unholy complaint filled the carriage.

“You should have left that foul creature back in Kempton,  Miss  Tempest,”  Mrs.  Bagley-Butterton complained for about the hundredth time.
Which equaled the number of times Hannibal had let out that ear-piercing yowl from the basket in which he was trapped.

“He  doesn’t  like  being  penned  up  so,”  Miss Louisa Tempest said in defense of her cat. “And I couldn’t leave him behind.”

There  was  a  sigh  of  resignation  from  beside Louisa. Miss Lavinia Tempest, Louisa’s twin, made a very deliberate show of looking out the window. She wasn’t about to rise to Hannibal’s defense.

Never would.

Louisa suspected her sister shared Mrs. Bagley- Butterton’s exasperation and wished poor Hannibal back in Kempton as well.

“I only hope your godmother is an understanding sort,” the matron continued, shifting in her seat in the carriage and eyeing the large basket on Louisa’s lap with an air of disdain and suspicion. She had protested vehemently against the cat being brought along, but she could hardly prevent the matter when the carriage conveying them to London belonged to the girls’ father, Sir Ambrose Tempest. “I know I wouldn’t have that cat in my house.” She sniffed loudly.

About the Author:

Elizabeth Boyle was an antipiracy paralegal for Microsoft before settling down to write full-time. Her first novel, Brazen Angel, which won Dell’s Diamond Debut Award in 1996, also won the Romance Writers of America’s RITA Award for Best First Book, and was a finalist for Best Long Historical Romance. She lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington. She is also the author of Brazen Heiress.

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Jennifer’s Review of The Viscount Who Lived Down The Lane

Review (4.5 Stars): What a lovely story!  Louisa Tempest and her twin sister, Lavinia, have come to London to stay with their godmother and to help Lavinia find herself a husband.  Louisa wants no part of any matchmaking herself and tries to find other ways to occupy her time while her sister prepares for the Season.  When her disagreeable cat, Hannibal, runs into the house next door uninvited, Louisa comes face to face with Viscount Wakefield, who doesn’t take kindly to visitors in his home.  Wakefield has been secluded in his home after being injured in the war and wants nothing more than to wallow in his own self-pity and hide from the rest of the world.  Louisa takes it upon herself to help her neighbor by doing little things to make his life better and in turn, shows Wakefield that life is worth living and love is waiting for him, if he just gives it a chance.

Louisa was such a sweet character, who just wanted to help the people in her life achieve their hopes and dreams.  She had no desire to get married because of “the curse” but wanted to make sure her sister had a chance at finding love.  When she met Viscount Wakefield, he was mean, rude and just hated the world around him.  He didn’t want help from anyone, especially not the beautiful woman that lived next door, who seemed to be meddling in his affairs.  She was the light in his world of darkness and by doing the things she did, she brought hope back into his life.  She also brought a chance of love and happiness for him, he just had to accept it and show Louisa how he felt about her.  They were a great couple even though they were exact opposites but sometimes those make the best couples.

This is the fourth book in the Rhymes with Love series and each story in the series is wonderful.  I love Ms. Boyle’s writing style and each story can stand on its own without having to read the rest of the books in the series.  I loved Louisa and Wakefield’s story and I hope that there are many more books to come in the Rhymes with Love series.

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Readers of Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and Sabrina Jeffries will love Ashlyn Macnamara’s novel about a smoldering new love that is threatened by past betrayals.

Viscount Lindenhurst cannot seem to find a governess who meets his impossible standards—until Cecelia Sanford becomes the first woman to interrupt the widower’s brooding in years. Lind had returned home from the Napoleonic wars, broken in body and soul and longing for his wife’s embrace, only to find her changed. Before they could reconcile, an accident struck their son and claimed her life. Now enter Cecelia, with her soft curves and sharp tongue—a tempting distraction, it is true, but not a welcome one.

Past the usual marrying age and haunted by a scandal of her own, Cecelia soon finds herself caring for both the child and the man. The viscount is brittle and even abrupt at times, yet she cannot deny the attraction that stirs her body in his presence. Moved by the deep sense of abandonment that tortures his soul, Cecelia aches to fully awaken Lind’s heart from its rancorous slumber—if she can just keep their pasts from destroying a second chance at love.

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He refused to give in to the temptation to dismount. To approach her. She was a governess, for God’s sake, and the younger sister of a man he’d once deemed a friend. Reason enough to stay away, no matter how deucedly attractive he found her. “That is the accepted method for gaining entrance to a proper school when the time comes.”

“And what will you do when he shows no desire to deal with the vagaries of the first declension, let alone the third?”

He arched a brow at her, an expression usually guaranteed to cow the most recalcitrant servant. “And what do you know of such things?”

A smile flitted across her lips, evaporating so quickly, he wondered if he’d really seen it. “Perhaps I listened in when Alexander had lessons. But no matter. You are skirting the issue.”

“And what is the issue?” Besides the fact that he was the employer and thus set the rules.

“I’ve no idea if Latin is among his aptitudes or even his interests, but he has shown me one area that fascinates him.”

Good Lord, he knew what was coming. One of the other governesses had tried to discuss the boy with him. And what was her name? He’d been through so many he couldn’t recall, even if the conversation hadn’t taken place all that long ago. “I do not wish to discuss the boy’s obsession with those soldiers of his.”

“How can you not?” She stepped toward him, one hand outstretched, approaching his thigh. Near. Too near. “This might be the key to convincing him reading and writing are worth learning.”

God help her if she so much as grazed her fingertips against his leg. He wasn’t at all sure he could take responsibility for the outcome, not the way his body yearned toward hers. Not the way his cock came fully erect at the thought of her touch. He suppressed an urge to rein Judas away.

How long since he’d let a woman touch him? Not since Lydia. And even that had been ages before he’d lost her.

With his wife, he’d felt like a whole being. Complete. That was, until he’d discovered the truth.

And now, what kind of man would give in to his appetites like some mindless animal, no matter how long he’d done without female companionship? He ought to have learned to control himself long since.

“The last thing he needs is to be encouraged toward the military.” He forced the statement through his teeth as precisely as if he were giving orders. “Do you think the army would take him in his state?”

Her fingers wavered, and she curled them into a fist. Thank God. He well remembered her as a girl, those hands always in motion, fluttering like birds, brushing against various and sundry. She’d damned well better keep them away from him.

About the Author:

Ashlyn Macnamara is the author of What a Lady Craves, A Most Devilish Rogue, and A Most Scandalous Proposal. She lives in the wilds of suburbia outside of Montreal with her husband and two teenage daughters. When not writing, she looks for other excuses to neglect the housework, among them knitting, reading, and wasting time on the Internet in the guise of doing research.

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Jennifer’s Review of What A Lady Demands

Review (3.75 Stars): I love romances where the main character is a tortured dark hero that pushes everyone away from him and has a strong young woman that is brave enough to break down the walls around his heart. Cecelia has always been attracted to Lind but has never acted on it until she gets the opportunity to care for him and his son after the death of his wife.  I loved that she was spunky enough to deal with Lind’s personality and not be afraid of him when he was pushing people away from him.  It took me a while to warm up to him but I could definitely see what attracted Cecelia to him and the sparks flew whenever they were together.  Ms. Macnamara is a new author to me but I enjoyed What A Lady Demands and am looking forward to reading the first book in the series, What a Lady Craves.

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