27 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
What happened here?, January 1, 2000
This review is from: Scandal (Paperback)
I am usually the first to rave about a book by Amanda Quick (Jayne Castle/Jayne Ann Krentz) but I'm afraid I have to pan this one.
While the dialogue was, for the most part, as witty and charming as usual, there were many fatal flaws which completely ruined the experience of this books.
Blade was a character I just wanted to strangle. He was cold and calculating and did everything he could to crush Emily's sweet adoration of him. It was rather reminiscent of the early scenes between Demetrius and Helena in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". The usually undercurrent of the hero needing the heroine's love to fill a void wasn't developed enough and when Blade finally comes to accept and love Emily due to her "sacrifice," it seems a little too abrupt. Yes, I see how AQ was working him up to that point but it still didn't come off right.
Emily became rather annoying at times. She was so blinded by her infatuation that I wanted to shake her (which is rather silly considering she's a fictional character). Yes, the few pages where she actually shows a shrewdness is refreshing but there simply isn't enough in there to make me like her.
I'm used to characters I can grow to love and *respect* and for the first time in my history of reading Amanda Quick, I was disappointed. I do not recommend buying this book but it can still make for an interesting time-killer if you can get it from your local library.
Overall, badly done.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
One of Quick's earlier books..., August 20, 2001
This review is from: Scandal (Paperback)
SCANDAL was probably one of the first Amanda Quick books I read (before all her heroines started intermingling into one "Amanda Quick heroine" in my mind). Recently I picked up another copy of this same book and decided to re-read it. It was a good thing coming back to an early Quick after having given up on reading her for many years.
The plot is essentially the same: A young lady of good birth with a scandal in her past and with a somewhat unrestrained tongue (at least in the use of swear-words) meets up with a mysterious stranger. Except that she has been corresponding with this man for some time under his name, and not his title. Except that the man is out for revenge against her father and indeed her entire family. One of Quick's trademarks (for me at least) is that she quickly identifies what drives the hero - usually a past family or personal disgrace, coupled sometimes with financial ruin. If you don't like guessing at the hero's motives, this Quick habit is great. On the other hand, it makes some plot devices fairly obvious.
In this book, the mysterious stranger is an Earl whose father was ruined by Emily's father. We never quite learn what Simon (the Earl) had planned for Emily, but his plans rapidly change. He realizes that Emily is a financial and business genius, and that she is keeping her family afloat. He will marry Emily, and in so doing, revenge himself by ruining her family financially. After all, after they are married, Simon can forbid Emily to help her father and brothers. Or can he?
There are some other Quick trademarks - loyal servants, a genuinely evil villain, a relative who is absolutely indifferent to the heroine's plight. At least, I have come to think of them as Quick trademarks. That does not mean that the story is not interesting. It is - if only because Emily deliberately or inadvertently furthers Simon's plans for revenge and then neatly foils them. Her reasoning is that revenge is pointless, that innocent people will be hurt, and the greatest villains of the piece were their fathers. But she cannot have her own father hurt, and Simon's father is dead.
Is this a boring book? I did not find it boring. The book, like all of Quick's book, requires a certain suspension of disbelief, in that Quick creates an alternate Regency world in which women are permitted to engage in business (and have their business skills appreciated by men, if only for the sake of profit), in which a young lady can say "Bloody hell", in which an impoverished young earl can accumulate both power and wealth rapidly (without the sources of his wealth being completely clear). In some ways, Amanda Quick's heroes and heroines are thoroughly modern people transplanted to the Regency era, in other ways they are not. For example, Emily is still ruined when she elopes with a young poet; Quick does not go that far in ignoring Regency conventions.
The reason that some people love Quick's books is because her heroines are independent women with modern ideas, and with a fierce drive to prove themselves equal intellectually to the hero and other men. They are frequently learned, always intelligent (if sometimes naive) and always ready to be seduced by the hero. The hero is always a gentleman, almost always rich from the outset and frequently mysterious, but always skilled at the sensual pleasures. On the other hand, some of Quick's most faithful readers have deserted her, precisely because her books all began to sound alike.
I find her earlier books and middle period books to be the most readable.
Personally I prefer SCANDAL to some of her other books published in the early to mid 1990s. There is less intrigue in this book than her typical work, and less drama. The heroine is once in danger, but she is never kidnapped. And there are only three villains in this book, although the villainy of two of the men consists mostly of egoism and extreme selfishness. If you like a quieter read, try this one. It has only a few sensual scenes, but it is a read with its own charm.
I rated this book at about a 3.4, which is slightly less than the grade assigned to DESIRE, one of her two medievals.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
My first and still my favorite regency romance!, August 18, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Scandal (Paperback)
Eight years ago, I was drawn to this book by it's beautiful stepback cover...what a pleasant surprise!
Great story! My first book by this author too--I ran to buy the two she wrote previously to this as well.
Emily is fun, funny, and very likable. Blade is so sexy. The lovescenes are hot but not too overdone. (The scene with the necktie is quite memorable.)
Fast paced, never boring, a great intro to regency romances in general and Amanda Quick in particular.
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