Customer Reviews

Nobody's Angel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a wonderful love story. Susannah is the "old maid" eldest daughter of a widower preacher. To help ease her workload, she decides to purchase a "bound man." She recklessly purchases Ian Connelly,a convict who has been badly beaten. While restoring him back to health, she develops an instant attraction to this stranger who is surprisingly well educated and very handsome. Ian has a secret past and identity, and this past is still trying to hunt him down. He works diligently to prove himself to Susannah, but she has difficulty pushing aside his status as her "bound" servant. The romance that develops between these two characters is so sweet and strong, that you will not be able to sert the book down until you've finished. I literally stayed up all night to read this book, it was that good. The story takes place in both America and England, during the days when convicts were shipped off to America to be sold as slaves.

I loved this book. I've read it twice, and I still cannot get over the incredible romance that Susannah and Ian share. I loved Susannah's family, and only hope that in the future, Karen Robards will revisit Susannah's sisters and write their stories of romance.

The intimate scenes between Ian and Susannah will take your breath away. The ending will make you smile and laugh, and the relationship between the two lovers will keep you in stitches of laughter and in near tears simultaneously. I recommend this book wholeheartedly. Read it and you'll know what I'm talking about.

As a side note..the cover of this book..the one with the woman whiping the man just made me crack up :).

I remember reading this very good novel but not remembering the author because it was such a long time ago..years and years I say. I got lucky and this book fell into my hands a second time :) hehehe. In a short summary, a spinster that is busy taking care of her father and 3 sisters decides to buy a slave. The thing I don't get is that ...her father is a priest. This somehow contradicts itself, yet it works. Surprisingly, the man only stays around to get under her skirt. He turns out to be a marquis and she catches him 'sneaking' away. The sex is incredible, the guy is incredible, but he is an idiot she always seems to forgive. Ehh?!

This book has it's funny parts..when he is trying to collect eggs from the chicken coop and comes out with feathers stuck to him and killer chickens after him. Her sisters always bickering..kinda reminds me of my family. :) Come on give it a try, you know you want to . and besides it's a good one.

This book is about a household of daughters of a Baptist minister run by the eldest, spinster daughter, since their father's mind usually occupied with church things. To ease the physical burden of running a farm, she purchased a bond servant who turned out to be a English aristocrat betrayed to be killed but ended up being sold instead.

What do you get when you have a man born and bred to be a duke put into a position of being a bond servant? What do you get when you have a authoritarian, bossy spinster lady who is use to being in charge of everything and everyone challenged by a former marquise? The dynamics between the two was hilarious. I enjoyed Ian being Ian, who sleeps buck naked, who exudes arrogance and sexuality, who makes you want to wack him with a bag of beans at times for his gall, and who makes you applaud him when he is able to see inner and hidden beauty in someone who was truly beautiful all around.

I enjoyed Suzanna too, who has the burden of a large family, farm and community on her shoulders, but accepts her station in life without complaint. She is one of those people who is truly selfless and giving, and trying with every ounce of her being to be "good." Which was why I understood her comflict when she falls in love with Ian and makes love with him, then struggled with the guilt. I also loved it when she discovered against her preconceived notion of herself, that she could be physically beautiful with the right clothes and hair-do.

This was a fun story, very sexy, and full of surprises. However, the ending felt rushed. I would have liked to see Susanna strut her inner strength and duchess-like demeanor at Ian's side at the ton while they were in London. I would have liked to see Ian get more satisfaction than the two pages, when he revealed his mother's evil plot. It would have been nice to have more words devoted to Ian and Suzanna's final reunion, and maybe an epilogue about their life as a married couple.

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I love heroines who are plain, serious, on the shelf, and all that good stuff, lol. Susannah definitely delivers on that end, but she's also *much* more: she's strong, generous, intelligent, and all-around lovely. She is essentially the head of her household, taking care of her three younger sisters and her absentminded father, who is a reverend. Susannah has held this caretaker role since she was 14 and her mother died. While she is at times content, she is never truly happy, and has given up on the idea that she might have a family and home of her own someday.

Her pairing with Ian Connelly (also the Marquis of Derne, though she doesn't know it) was absolutely perfect. He was a "bad boy" in his previous life (read: rake/rogue) and is truly considered one now, having been (wrongly) convicted of attempted murder and sent to America to serve a term of indentured servitude. While this book was written awhile ago, Ian is not an 80s-throwback hero, of which I was very relieved. He's an alpha male-type definitely, but I liked that he *does* work the farm and wants to learn how to help the family. He's a marquis, has no experience with physical labor, and was pretty much a wenching wastrel before all of this happened, yet he doesn't act spoiled or condescending.

The exchanges between Ian and Susannah were very sweet; I so enjoyed watching him tease her and seeing Susannah lighten up a little and allow herself to enjoy things. They are very much opposites, but fit together perfectly. The first half of the book was great, because we get to see their relationship develop through this odd-prism of Susannah thinking Ian is an indentured servant she bought (and ex-servant) and a man she's falling in love with, and Ian beginning to realize that Susannah is so much more than she shows the world and that all the other beautiful (but spiteful and greedy) women he's known pale in comparison to her.

CRITICISMS:
The second half is where things decidedly went downhill for me. I don't want to give anything away regarding the plot, so I will just say the following:
-- What could have been an emotional and lovely reunion was not.
-- Susannah has a decidedly shrewish period, one that is somewhat understandably, but a little over the top.
-- The entire subplot of how Ian was betrayed and forced into indentured servitude is resolved completely "off-screen" (off-page?) and is unbelievably anti-climactic - twice-over.
-- Parts of the subplot seem to come out of nowhere and involve people we've never met before or even been told about.
-- For most of the second half, the romantic relationship between Susannah and Ian is very different from what it was before - and not in a good way. It felt very seedy and far more superficial - and mostly physical - than it had before. Also, their personalities seem very changed, though I'm not sure whether that was what contributed to the seediness-feeling or vice versa.
-- The ending was a little anti-climactic and I feel that more should have been resolved between them, both emotionally and practically/logistically.

I also did not like the fact that almost all of the book was told from Susannah's POV. It made me feel very blind as to what was going on emotionally and internally with Ian, and I would have liked more insight into his feelings and thoughts.

Two other minor complaints: Whatever happened with Jed, the wife-beater? And Susannah's sister Mandy was very, very annoying.

BOTTOM LINE:
While this book could have easily been turned into a 4.5 or maybe even 5 star read for me, several things in the second half of the book decidedly lowered my opinion. I'm glad that I read the book and would recommend it, however I'm also happy that I got it from the library and did not buy my own copy.

RECOMMENDATIONS:
In many ways, this book reminded me of Lorraine Heath's series Rogues in Texas, which revolves around three English "gentlemen" who are all sent by their families to America "for their own good." They are best friends: one is a duke's bastard, another an aimless and direction-less second son, and the third a gambling addict.
Book 1 - A Rogue in Texas (4 stars)
Book 2 - Never Love a Cowboy (4 stars)
Book 3 - Never Marry a Cowboy (unread)

Karen Robards did a good job of telling her story about a family in the deep south in 1769. Most of us have little knowledge of the everyday life during that time so Robards did a good job of researching her subject. Religion plays a big part in the family life of a southern preacher--her father. His four daughters are who the story centers around. Susannah is the key person who shows southern hospitality and sweet innocence in the matter of the heart. The scene is ripe for her to be swept off her feet by a young dashing--reprobate. Robards spins her yarn telling how these two opposites' paths cross and love blossoms. This was a quick and interesting read. It has a wonderful twist on the prince charming subject. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning about southern comfort, history, sibling rivalry and the rags to riches theme.--- Beverly C. Sanders

This is a cute book with pretty good characters. What made it for me, though, was the humor, which was fantastic.

The beginning, with Susannah buying Ian as a slave was interesting (annoying, the way she tried to lead him around on a leash, but she became nice pretty quick). I found it irritating how she wouldn't believe a word out of his mouth. In fact, I hated Susannah. I liked Ian a lot though, and wished he would have had the sense to dump her and get with someone actually worthy of him. She insulted him at nearly every turn, and was basically awful and beyond snappish, but she didn't become this way until the end--she got progressively meaner and more idiotic.

The middle of the novel, with Ian learning how to work on a farm was funny and endearing. He was so cute, trying to get eggs from the chicken coop and then running away in terror. I just wish the end wasn't so...ridiculous.

I loved this book! It was fasinating and I enjoyed how the two fell in love. Suzanna and Ian are wonderful together but I wish that we could find out what happened to them after he came back from England to reclaim Suzanna: Kids, Home, live in the states or England? This could have been an opportunity for the author to begin a saga! Finding love for all of the sisters in each installment!

This was a well developed story about four sisters and their minister father who live and work on a farm in the late 1700's. Farm life, chores, and family values are the focus of this family's lifestyle. Out of a desperate need for help on the farm, the eldest daughter, Savannah, decides to purchase a "bound-man" (convict/slave), Ian.

This book is enjoyable enough to keep you turning the pages, but the romance between Ian and Savannah is a bit far-fetched. Savannah's immature and hostile attitude becomes tiresome and I constantly wondered why Ian kept chasing after her.

It's an original story, which makes it worth reading.

I imagine there were thousands upon thousands of young women in a similar position as the heroine, women died young, most often in childbed and the oldest girl in the family was left with taking the mother's place in the household and raising any younger siblings. The heroine dealt with her situation as well as she could. It was against her nature, her religion, to buy the indentured convict but she knew she had no choice.

The hero, like the hero in Alyx, was a British nobleman who had been sent, originally to prison to by murdered but thanks to bribery, escaped with his life, only to be sold a bondsman. As we know from Alyx, it happened in reality, I believe the name of the young man was James Annesley and he had been sold into slavery. After his return to England, his estates were returned to him but as far as I know, he never received his title back.

What this book so aptly describes is two worlds colliding. An arrogant, good looking young man who never had to work in his life and an overworked young woman, who believed herself to be not pretty and definitely on the shelf, getting to know and love each other.