Customer Reviews

The Scandalous Miss Delaney (Zebra Regency Romance)

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

 

 

Miss Delaney is delightfully unpredictable, naive and mischievous, stubborn and clever. She is a 'Wiley Coyote" in silk and lace. But Lambrook--I wanted to land him a facer myself. Miss Blair's imagery is brilliant and the story bounces along at a frolicking rate. Two thumbs up for her first novel--looking forward to the next.

The plot is well conceived and might have become a good regency in the hands of a competent author. Ms. Delaney's understanding of the social conventions of the era are so woefully inadequate that I winced every time a character opened his or her mouth. I set language aside, being quite willing to have regency characters employ contemporary grammar and word usage. What I cnnot abide is to have them discuss topics in a manner no one in this period would have found concievable. Imagine a gentleman happening upon an unknown lady at the piano and saying, "You play terribly." Come to think of it, such a thing would be inconcievable for a gentleman in any era. In the next conversation a lady asks her wealthy neice, who has just come from London where she has been enjoying the season, if she knows how to dance and proceeds, over the heroine's objections, to arrange dancing lessons with her son's tutor. The plot will turn on these lessons. Say what? All young ladies knew how to dance. It is like asking an American seventeen-year-old if she knows how to drive a car. Atop all of these absurdities, we are asked to endure Ms. Blair's style, which is as subtle as a bludgeon.

The story opens with Madeline Delaney's father ranting over two social faux-pas his daughter committed that evening, which immediately piqued my attention. Regency fans know that waltzing before given permission by the Patronesses and being seen kissing a man at a ball are both horribly scandalous. I was hooked as to what would happen next.

What I didn't like about the story is subjective, because these elements might appeal to other Regency readers. I personally don't care for very young heroines, and Madeline is 18, just 4 months shy of 19 years old. Her actions and words are in keeping with her age, but they just didn't appeal to me. She's very naïve, rather silly, and a bit hoydenish. She's also kind and usually tries to speak the truth rather than being deceptive, but her wild schemes and silly behavior were off-putting at times.

The hero also didn't capture me. He vacillated between disapproving and sexy, which seemed a bit extreme for me. The physical attraction between them didn't really move me, but that again is very subjective, and another reader might find those scenes hotter than a cyprian's boudoir.

The characters' actions throughout the book remain satisfyingly consistent. Nothing out of synch with how the characters were written, no moments of "Now why did he do that when he said this before?" I was never jarred out of the story by strange choices or inconsistent behavior.

I especially liked the interaction between Madeline and her younger cousin Frederick. It is so refreshing and funny, because although they profess to dislike each other, it's obvious they enjoy each others' company very much. Their banter is cute and breezy. The interaction between Madeline and her duenna is similar, with tongue-in-cheek dialogue and gentle sarcasm. Mrs. Benjamin is a bit stereotypical of a life-long family retainer, but she is a very good foil to Madeline's volatile personality.

I thought that the plot events (I won't disclose them here) were well done. The humorous things that happened moved the story along at a good pace-not too fast, but not meandering either.

I guess I'm a bit oblivious since I didn't notice the contemporary flavor of the dialogue that the previous reviewer mentioned. I am also American and wouldn't know a fake British accent from a real one, so anything slightly formal seems authentic to me. Because this is most definitely a Regency romp or a farce, the dancing lessons and the more blatant plot devices didn't knock me out of the story world. A more exacting Regency reader might care, but I certainly didn't.

In all, this book was entertaining but I just didn't care for the heroine's character. It didn't turn me off of this author, at any rate, and I would read another title of hers.

Ms Blair has managed to give an early-nineteenth-century heroine a strong late-twentieth-century character and still stay in period, one of the most difficult feats for a writer of this genre to accomplish. The result is truly delightful. There are lots of fun and twists and turns along the way to entertain; a hero who's very believable but still gorgeous; some interesting minor characters--and all this written with a deft hand. I look forward to seeing what Catherine Blair brings us next...

Madeline Delaney is a fun-loving, good-hearted young lady whose impulsiveness keeps getting her into trouble. The hero, Devin Forth, becomes her unwilling knight-errant and the sparks begin to fly...... I was torn between laughing at and empathizing with Maddy as the situations she finds herself in go from bad to worse and of course, holding my breath to see what would happen next to her relationship with the ever so-yummy Devin! I love Regency Romances and this one stands out as a humorous and captivating tale. I highly recommend this book and will be on the lookout for more offerings by Ms. Blair!

I tend not to read Regency romances so much as other things, but I was recommended to this book by a friend. I have read and enjoyed Jane Austen, who is of course writing during the period during which her stories take place, so she doesn't have a sense of humor about the delicious histronics that go on in a young girl when she's in love and can't admit it. Madeline Delaney is someone who, despite her curricles and duenna, I can really relate to - she's a big spaz and full of energy and very real to me. Devin Forth is so stern, he's the perfect man-you-have-always-wanted but was just not available - I was really tickled by her sense of drama and hyperbole. I hope Miss Blair comes out with another book soon - I like her style!

The only reason to buy and/or read this book is because it randomly coincides with Andrew McMahon's songs, "Miss Delaney" and "Holiday From Real".