Customer Reviews

The Bad Baron's Daughter (Candlelight Regency #255)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

(Note, the last review for this book seems to be for the Gypsy Heiress, also a great book) I bought this book because I thought the title was ridiculous and I'm very glad I did. It was the first Laura London (Tom and Sharon Curtis) I've read. The heroine, naive but not stupid, finds herself alone in the world since her father, the Bad Baron, is off running away from creditors and angry husbands. She ends up in the custody of Lord Lyndon, who, to his own surprize finds himself protecting her rather than doing what a rake ought to do with a young vulnerable thing. But it's not the plot (tried and true, but still fun) that makes this book (and most of the Curtis' books) fly, it's the unexpected treasures: the heroine's response to Lyndon's attempt at seduction, the various interesting places he finds to stash her (with his former mistress for one). If you like regencies, you have to find a copy of this one.

The hero in this book was very different from the usual Regency genre male. In fact, Lesley Byrne, Lord Linden was a true rake. Women, gambling, etc... and all played before you in his actions and words. He held nothing back, rather nasty and disrespectful, and had a violent temper. I never warmed to him very much.

Our heroine is much like a Barbara Cartland novel, innocent beyond belief. As others stated, Kate lived independently in the country and talked about reading a lot but seemed to have no common sense. Written in the late 70's, I did not find this portrayal of Kate that annoying.

Other characters in the book were unusual too, starting with Kate's "friend" Zack who was the son of her father's mistress. He was realistically described and eager to rid himself of Kate and solve her problems by "selling" her to a protector. Kate's father (our "bad" Baron) did turn out to be disappointing after all but we are given so many indications of his bad moral character, it should not be a surprise. I enjoyed reading about Lesley's grandmother, brother Andrew and cousin Suzanne. Not enough room in the book to expand their roles but I would have liked to find out more about them.

All in all, though the couple was mismatched, I enjoyed the portions when Lord Linden finds himself falling in love and does some little touching things that pulled me to his side. Kate, with her rather shallow but downtrodden persona, also has some good points. There are some nasty villains which come to a violent end. The storyline kept me riveted just to see how it all would turn out. Rather different.

I started reading romantic fictions not long ago and heard a lot about the author(s), so I spent a small fortune on two second-hand Laura London books, Bad Baron's Daughter and Love's Stage. Bad Baron's Daughter is certainly a better book of the two. Most characters are well drawn, especially the hero, Lord Linden. He is a fascinating and complex character. To most people he is arrogant, cynical, callous, manipulative, worldly, he has his tender and caring side well hidden. He says the meanest and nastiest things! The most entertaining part of the book is his dialogues. The heroine, Katie, however is annoying in the extreme. She is seventeen but possesses the brain of a toddler. She is supposed to live a self-dependant and self-sufficient life most of her life, but she shows no intelligence or cleverness or slightest understanding of the world. The things she says and does would make a three-year old look sweet and cute but a seventeen-year dim-witted. She even manages to shoot herself by accident! The hero and heroine are so mismatched, I just don't believe that she can inspire love in him.

Bad Baron's Daughter and Love's Stage share a similar storyline - a naïve country girl gets into trouble in wicked London and is rescued by a handsome lord who has broken countless hearts in the past but somehow falls in love with her. Laura London did write some of the cleverest lines, but their type of sweet, cute, brainless heroines are certainly out of date.

Katie Kendricks is the Bad Baron's daughter and therefore, beyond respectability at the get go. The story starts with her feebly disguised as a boy, working at the gin swilling pub owned by a family friend. Specifically, her father's old mistress' son, Zack, who she grew up with when they were all living together as one happy family for a few of her young years. Zack's smarmy pub is, naturally, in the smarmiest part of London. The Bad Baron has disappeared and Katie is pennliess and homeless and Zack is the only person she has left to ask for help. What Katie doesn't know is that the Baron had told Zack a few years before that the only future open to Katie as the Bad Baron's daughter was to become someone's mistress. So, Zack sets out to carry out the Baron's wishes altho Katie is adamantly against it.

When Lord Linden saves Katieboy from a run-in with an ugly customer (not just skin deep), Zack takes this opportunity to drug and deliver Katie for her new job as Linden's new plaything. Linden turns out to be drunk as, well, as a lord and almost forces Katie into sleeping with him (yay for euphamisms) but then he is smote by his conscience and doesn't. From then on, Linden receives regular beatings from his conscience, it seems. Sadly out of character, if I may say so, and for so unworthy a cause. Anyway, when he finds out who Katie really is, he tries to track down her father who remains persistenly missing.

Meanwhile, back at the swank Linden London bachelor pad, someone has been trying to kill Katie which results in an embarrassing social blunder. Classic Katie moment. Thanks to the social blunder, however, we meet Linden's younger brother, Andrew, who is perfect for the Cat Role (think Windflower) in our story. The murder attempt prompts Linden to make his real sometime mistress take Katie in temporarily for safekeeping. The rest of the story involves keeping the idiotic Katie alive and finding the equally iditioc Bad Baron.

As you may already have guessed by the winding down tone of my summary, of all the things I despise most in a story it's a spineless, jellyfish of a heroine. Invertebrates such as this are to be despised. The only reason this got two stars is that the Curtises writing is always, at least, readable, and Linden has some humorous dialogue. However, most times I found myself longing to fling this book across the room because I was denied the satisfaction of doing Katie some serious bodily harm myself.

Note that I wasn't so mad at Zack (since he was just being realistic and, really, confronted with someone as brainless as Katie what dastardly deeds would I be driven to?) as much as I was mad at Katie for living in a fool's paradise and relying on her father. Hasn't she learned anything over the years? Geez! I mean, if you don't want to become a mistress, fine, then go find a maid job or find some farmer to marry in the country or WHATEVER. Don't just rely on a patently unreliable father to show up and work in a sinkhole bar in the meantime expecting not to get caught and pressed into active duty as something besides a waiter.

We can't always have an assertive, independent, 21st century thinker stuck in a period costume. Katie's character is innocent, honest, good, and trusting. She had a bad childhood (continuing to adulthood) being poor, neglected, and spurned by all because of her father's reputation which probably wasn't a confidence builder. She just goes along with whatever comes, passively accepting bad things. I understand this is her character. I understand this is a realistic character. What I don't want to do is read about this character. I mean and at least if she changed to become a little more street smart or assertive after all these horrid things keep happening but nooo . . . yi, I'm ranting here.

Suffice to say, I was reading thru a red mist most of the time but, as always, you should form your own opinion. If Katie's your kind of girl, this story is for you.

This is one of my favorite books.... Very moving and tender.

The story started not so impressive, but then the chracters evolved in a very subtle and believable fashion and I could not put the book down until I finished it.

if you can get hod of a copy of this book garb it and don't let it go! wonderful story, absolutely hilarious moments and a great happy ending. i have had this book for years and it is on my do not loan under any cicumstances list.

Eliza has spent all of her short life with her gypsy grandmother. Now her grandmother is dead, but Eliza has been discovered by Lord Brockhaven, who claims she is the heiress of a marquess - and his ward. She makes friends with a distant relative of the earl's. Together, they decide to track down the werewolf plauging the district. As if her enforced change in lifestyle weren't enough, Eliza finds herself irrisistibly attracted to her guardian... As usual, Sharon & Tom Curtis(writing as Laura London)present us with entire cast of entertaining characters.